All commercial flights scheduled to depart from Belgium’s two largest airports, Brussels International Airport and Charleroi Airport, are canceled tomorrow Tuesday due to a strike by security staff and service workers.

The strike follows a call for action by an anti-EU trade union confederation over the working conditions of “essential workers” in the cleaning, security and catering sectors.

A demonstration is planned for today in Brussels, in the area of ​​the premises of the institutions of the Union.

At Brussels International Airport, Belgium’s largest airport, 249 scheduled flights are being cancelled, according to a spokesman for the airport’s operating company.

On arrivals, only 98 of the 243 flights scheduled for tomorrow will make it, he said.

Baggage check workers strike affects air traffic. These screening functions at the two airports have been outsourced to the same service provider, the British multinational G4S.

At Charleroi Airport, “around 100” scheduled flights are cancelled, notably by Ryanair, which has made the airport its main hub in Europe. “However, we can ensure arrivals without a problem, as there is no interaction with the security staff,” stressed Nathalie Pierard, spokeswoman for the Charleroi Airport Authority (BSCA), in communication with Agence France-Presse.

The thousands of passengers affected by the cancellations are urged to contact the airlines of their flights.

Unions calling for protests argue that European procurement regulations have “fueled a downward spiral in working conditions” for workers in the cleaning, security and catering sectors. Unions are calling for changes to these European rules.

The FGTB in Belgium and the CFDT in France are among fifteen unions from several European countries who plan to turn against the EU on the issue, under the umbrella organization United Network International.