NETHERLANDS (CelebrityAccess) This weekend’s Decibel Outdoor electronic music festival in Hilvarenbeek, Netherlands, will reportedly be without a police presence because of a union dispute.
Police union ACP and the Dutch government are having a disagreement over pay and working condition and, unless there is a “serious disruption of public order,” police will not be around the Aug. 17-19 event, according to IQ magazine. The union called it an “enormous amount of work that can no longer be dealt with.”
“We cannot keep up with the increase in the number of events, and our work [at festivals] is no longer in proportion to other tasks,” an ACP representative said. “This year alone, there are nearly 1,000 festivals which, almost without exception, demand police deployment. This places a huge strain on the force in the present circumstances.”
The police unions and the Netherlands’ Ministry of Justice and Security have been deadlocked in a dispute after the unions rejected a 7 percent pay raise this summer, according to local media. Along with avoiding the festival, police have stopped issuing tickets and collecting fines.
The announcement comes on the heels of France revealing, through a leaked memo, that it plans to start charging festival promoters for police presence.
