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Erasmus Bridge (licensed CC BY 2.0 on Flickr by Tobias Michaelsen)Dutch police planning to disrupt Tour de France Grand Depart
Police officers in the Netherlands are planning to disrupt next month’s Grand Départ of the Tour de France as part of an ongoing dispute over pay, including bringing the race to a halt on Rotterdam's Erasmus Bridge.
The Nederlands Politiebond (NPB) union says members will hold a protest bike ride in Utrecht on Saturday 4 July, lasting one hour before the opening time trial stage of the 102nd edition of the race.
The following day, officers in hi-visibility vests will carry out vehicle checks on the Tour’s publicity caravan as it crosses the Erasmus Bridge midway through Stage 2 from Utrecht to Zeeland.
According to the NPB, the action will continue “until it becomes clear in the live broadcasts in several European countries that the riders of the Tour de France are at a standstill due to police officers campaigning for better conditions.”
Officers in hi-vis will be accompanied by police vehicles and boats on the New Meuse which flows beneath the iconic bridge, a symbol of the city and which featured in the Prologue of the 2010 Tour, hosted by Rotterdam.
With the structure certain to feature in TV footage again this year, police officers will continue their protest as the peloton passes.
The NPB says the bridge has also been chosen as the venue for the protest on Stage 2 because there will be no public access to it, meaning the demonstration can proceed safely.
The union is not actively involved in organising the action but it has given its blessing and is calling on as many of its members as possible to take part and for officers on duty to let it proceed.
A website, branded Toer de CAO – the acronym refers to the collective bargaining agreement process that is common in Dutch industrial relations – has been set up so participants can register and find out more.
The pay dispute has been ongoing for three months, with the NPB demanding an increase of 3.3 per cent among other things, and the union says that the planned protests at the Grand Départ will be followed by others targeting high-profile events during the summer.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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16 comments
Shameful.
I hope they don't search any team cars - never know what they might find! Haha.
Restriction of labour is all the working man has. More power.
Utter bollocks, "the working man" has total freedom of employment. If the pay and conditions aren't good, then quit and get a different job.
What a thoroughly retarded comment.
There's a surprisingly high number of right-wing sociopaths on this site.
Nowasps, I'd like to introduce you to the internet
The internet, this is Nowasps
I don't believe you two have met before
Easy to say. Have you ever had a bullying employer? Or never had a wage rise in 5 years? Or worked in a place with demeaning or dangerous working conditions? And is finding a job (let alone a better one!) so easy to find nowadays?
Time to grow up.
so true, I haven't had a proper pay rise in 11 years... it's always been exactly the official rate of inflation... the only proper rise I had was when I was promoted a couple of years back and the only other proper rise I had was when hitting 55, my pension was updated and was no longer reduced for having commuted it when I came out of the RAF after 22 years...
Getting jobs now is worrying because of rampant ageism so I'm not exactly in a hurry to change job at the moment.
Sounds excellent to me.
Will Hinault be there to chin a few coppers?
I was just wondering the same: who in today's peloton could take on his role?
This strike/picket will bring publicity to their cause that is true, but do they not understand it will be NEGATIVE publicity?
That's never stopped anyone in the UK striking, ever.
...or France.
I'm sure they understand that. It's negative publicity that the people who set their pay would prefer to avoid.