Gent
At the De Lijn depot in Gentbrugge, a spontaneous action broke out among the staff on Saturday morning after several cases of aggression on Friday. This is reported by Bart Reyns, secretary of ACV Public Services. He expects that there will be virtually no trams and buses in the city center of Ghent on Saturday.
“The staff had been walking on their toes for weeks and spontaneous actions were averted several times. Both incidents of aggression yesterday were too much,” Reyns said in a statement.
The victims of Friday’s aggression are a tram operator and two line inspectors. According to Reyns, a man who behaved suspiciously at a bus stop turned out to be in possession of a firearm during a scuffle with a tram operator. Not much later, at another location in the city, two inspectors were hit by travelers without a ticket.
According to the trade unionist, there has been a notable increase in the number of reports of aggression in the city for some time now. This includes fights between travelers, reports of verbal aggression, but also more and more physical aggression against staff.
Reyns expects that there will be virtually no trams and buses in the city on Saturday due to the action. It is not immediately clear how long the campaign will last. An appointment to meet with Ghent mayor Mathias De Clercq, to see how the wave of aggression can be tackled, had already been planned. “A meeting about this was to take place on May 7, but the facts of last night made spontaneous action unavoidable,” the union added.
