Police to hinder travelers at Utrecht CS in labor actions

The police will hinder train travelers at Utrecht Central Station during rush hour on Monday morning as part of their labor actions for a better collective bargaining agreement. Police officers will form a line at the station and passengers will only be able to enter through gaps in the line, ANP reports.

This action will happen between 7:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. Travelers should take delays into account, according to the police unions. According to the municipality of Utrecht, agreements were made with the police unions and the municipality expects no hindrance to the public.

According to the unions, the average citizen feels safe at Utrecht Central Station, but it takes a lot of police effort to achieve this. The choice for Utrecht Central should be seen as a statement for all stations in the Netherlands. Other cities will also have their turn, the unions said.

The police have been protesting for a better collective bargaining agreement for weeks, because they feel that there is too little capacity to carry out all their tasks properly. Over the past weeks they've stopped writing traffic fines, stopped collecting fines, and deleted photos from speeding cameras so that speeders can't be fined. The labor actions also include not deploying police officers to major events, like the Outdoor Decibel festival earlier this month. And the unions called on officers working at the police's information desk to reduce their activities.

There will also be no police at the first question time of the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of Dutch parliament, after summer vacation on Tuesday. That means also no personal security in the building. This action should have no consequences for the meeting and it will happen as scheduled, Kamer president Khadija Arib said.