Notified by union leaders since one week ago that a major protest against the Government would take place, on the day that the Parliament would hold the vote on the eighth motion of no-confidence, I decided to participate, for the n-th time (as I"ve lost count), as a journalist, in the meeting organized by the Romanian Union Confederations.
This time it wasn"t just any meeting, but a protest against the amendments to the Labor Code that the Government passed without a public debate, which, with a title like "No to slavery in the workplace!" should have, if not become a serious cause for concern, at least given food for thought to a lot of people.
* The protest starts at 12:00. Better make that 12:30; no, make it 12.45
I had been announced by the unionists, in a press release, that the meeting would start at 12:00. However, having some experience with previous union meetings, I decided however that it wasn"t worth hurrying to get there: it"s tough to get a crowd together in Romania. Still, I got to the Constitution Square at around 12:10 and I found that the square was 75% empty, as only a few thousand people were attending. Stray yells, a few exhortations from the union leaders on stage - nothing spectacular. I quickly get the gist of what"s happening and I realize that the protesters seem to be guided by the "haste makes waste" principle. A union leader, from up high on the platform placed in the square, announces that the meeting will in fact start at 12:30. More time passes and another unionist announces on the microphone: "We will start at 12.45!".
* Our protest and Japan"s issues
Files of protesters start coming into the square around 13:00, and it finally starts to look like a real protest. A sea of colored flags, banners, statements of sympathy, including with the tragedy in Japan, and the ever-present cries of "Down with the G
