Comments on: Manifesta 9: Genk http://www.redpepper.org.uk/manifesta-9-genk/ Red Pepper Tue, 17 Sep 2013 17:58:53 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.6.1 By: jangenk http://www.redpepper.org.uk/manifesta-9-genk/#comment-146539 jangenk Wed, 16 Jan 2013 18:01:21 +0000 http://www.redpepper.org.uk/?p=8610#comment-146539 Hi Jane,

i live in Asia but was born in Genk and was there during the crisis of the mine closure (Genk had 3 big coalmine sites). Ford was already there in the 60′s. The last 2 mine closures happened in the 80′s.
Genk’s Northern and Southern Industrial Estates managed to employ aroun 45000 workers. So Genk does not only depend on Ford as approx 8000-10000 jobs will be lost in 2014 upon Ford’s closure.
Politicians should have seen this coming over 10 yrs ago as Belgium can not compete with Spain, Romania and Turkey.
Genk is developing an office zone near the Limburghal convention centre and is developing a science park at Waterschei (former mining site). C-Mine is another inovative project which made neighbouring towns in Holland and Germany jealous…
The spirit in Genk is a survival spirit and whatever happens will be overcome or replaced or improved.\
Yes thanks mines, thanks Ford to make Genk a booming, trendy and inventive place, but it’s time to move on to something bigger.
Genk went through many dark periods and will master this one too.

]]> By: jane shallice http://www.redpepper.org.uk/manifesta-9-genk/#comment-91342 jane shallice Thu, 25 Oct 2012 21:23:49 +0000 http://www.redpepper.org.uk/?p=8610#comment-91342 This evening I have just read that Fords have announced that their plant in Genk would be closed in 2014. All 4340 workers will be sacked and production moved to Spain. But this Fords plant was the way that the Belgium government dealt with the closure of the mines in Genk in the 1960s, they negotiated with Fords to open the plant and all the redundant miners were transferred. While we were in Genk we heard there was a rumour that Fords were thinking of closing the factory. But this time there will be no social democratic deals made to bring jobs into the town. It is a different climate with over 4000 families facing unemployment, in a town that is a one factory town. When the miners in 1966 were facing the prospect of the mines being closed they occupied the mine and there was a bloody confrontation with the police and two miners were shot dead. They managed to keep the mine open for a couple more years and the government negotiated the arrival of Fords. Hopefully there will be as big a struggle as 45 years ago.

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