I nearly had to walk to work today

The 3 biggest trade unions in Belgium have gone on strike today, to protect wages & the workers purchasing power. This means that there is no public transport, no busses, no trains no trams no metros. It's also affected the schools, the retailing sector and all administration services.

I don't know what other people do on days like today. Because we live in Brussels I had no problem coming in to work. Brad felt sorry enough for me to drive me to work, else I would have had to use his bicycle or Rourke's scooter. My mom is watching our kids which means that Brad can also carry on with his work and not have to take the kids along to the house he is renovating. However, what about the other people who may be able to get to work but have no one to look after their kids so they have to put in leave to stay at home, meaning that they lose one days leave due to the strike.

I'm also not sure how this strike is going to improve things. The whole entire world is busy going through an economic crisis. How is demanding bigger salaries going to solve the problem? I mean if companies have to pay bigger salaries they are going to have to cut cost to be able to do that. How are they going to cut costs? By cutting down on the number of salaries they are paying out, in other words this strike action could result in bigger salaries for a couple of people because a couple of other people are no longer receiving salaries. I'm just saying it seems like a pretty stupid solution to me.

It's Rourke's birthday tomorrow so I popped out to the shops during lunch time, (There is a huge supermarket very close to my office which is very convenient since the supermarket closes to our house is not quite as big.) only to discover that they were closed. Really even if you have to operate on a skeleton staff I would stay open. They are so busy everyday, I can just imagine how much money they are losing today by being closed. Now I just hope that my supermarket has enough of the cake mix that I need to bake a cake for Rourke to take to school tomorrow.