Policing Teachers’ Strike Actions

Chester Williams

ComPol Chester Williams says that the police department is working to maintain order, while still allowing the teachers and public service officers to carry out their constitutional right to protest and strike.  Williams speaks about the department’s approach.

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police

“We as a department who have been tasked to ensure that law and order maintains, what we will be doing during this time is not to be confrontational with union members. You would know that we are in the time of COVID-19 and COVID-19 regulations do prohibit mass gathering. And so what we have been doing is to work with the unions by exercising restraint, but at the same time we advise them to ensure that they are in compliance with the COVID-19 regulations. We do not want that one of these events may cause a super spreader of the virus. And so it is important that they do so and I must say that so far, they have been compliant. We have always seen the unions and the teachers as our friends, they are not enemies. And so whatever we can do to ensure that the events that they have are being policed, then we are going to do so. But in terms of going after them and being confrontational, we are not going to do that – no.”