Police strike
A police strike is a potential tactic when law enforcement workers are embroiled in a labour dispute. They are somewhat rare because police are usually treated better than other public sector workers. Sometimes military personnel are called in to keep order or discipline the strikers. Police strikes have the potential to cause civil unrest.
Contents
List of police strikes
- United Kingdom (1918, 1919); Main article: Police strike 1918 and 1919
- 1919 Winnipeg General Strike
- Boston (1919); Main article: Boston Police Strike
- Melbourne (1923);[1] Main article: 1923 Victorian Police strike
- Shanghai (1940)[2]
- Cairo (1948)[3]
- Detroit (1967)[4]
- Paris (1944);[5] see Liberation of Paris
- New Delhi (1946)[6]
- Cicero Police Department,Illinois (1969, Berwyn Police, Illinois 1969, Des Paines Police, Illinois 1969, Harvey Police Illinois 1969 led by John J Flood, Founder and President,1968 till 2001,Cook County Police Association (CCPA)
Waukegan, Illinois 1970, Lake County Sheriffs Police Illinois 1970, Skokie Police, Illinois 1970, Wheeling Police Illinois 1970 - led by John J Flood, Cook County Police Association ( CCPA ) Skokie, Illinois 1975 led by John J Flood Maywood Police Department, led by John J Flood
- Montreal (1969); See: Murray-Hill riot
- New York City (1971)[7]
- Baltimore (1974); Main article: Baltimore police strike
- San Francisco (1975),[8]
- Cleveland (1978)[9]
- New Orleans (1979)[10]
- Birmingham (1979)[11]
- Toledo (1979)[12]
- Santa Barbara (1980)[13]
- Milwaukee (1981)[14]
- Corona, CA (1983)[15]
- Ljubljana (1993)[16]
- Bahia, Brazil (2001)[17]
- Alagoas, Brazil (2001)[18]
- Brazil (2004)[19]
- Amsterdam (2007)[20]
- Ljubljana (2010)[21]
- 2010 Ecuador crisis. Police strike/coup partly in relation to planned benefit reductions.[22] After a state of emergency and the near assassination of the president, the government steps away from planned cuts to police and military benefits.[23] Police and military pay is then also increased.[23]
- Bahia, Brazil (2012)[24]
- 2013 police revolts in Argentina. Police strike over the value of their non inflation-indexed pay being eroded by rampant background inflation.[25] After days of national chaos, individual regional police forces receive pay increases ranging between 33% and 45%.[26]
Dynamics
Legality
Depending on the nation, some Crime Acts make it illegal for anyone to interfere with police in the course of their duty.[citation needed] In those respective nations, anyone calling on police to stop work or support a fellow worker would be guilty of a criminal offence.[citation needed] The public policy reasoning behind any ban on striking is that police officers do not have the employment rights enjoyed by other workers because of the critical nature of the job they do on behalf of the public.
United Kingdom
In the United Kingdom Police officers are currently banned from taking strike action under the Police Act 1996. The police have been banned from striking since 1919, when the Police Act was first established. The Police Federation of England and Wales is to ballot rank-and-file officers on moves to overturn the law.[27]
Causes
One cause for police strikes has been increases in the difficulty of policing itself. The wave of American police strikes in the late 1960s and 1970s accompanied other forms of social unrest—which themselves put pressure on police forces. Also, police wages, which had historically been exceptional, declined relative to the wages of other workers.[28] Police strikes have also occurred in situations where national control was in question and the police's alignment differed from the current rulers (i.e. in occupied France and India).
See also
References
- ↑ Days Of Violence: : The 1923 Police strike in Melbourne (1998) Gavin Brown and Robert Haldane ISBN 1-876462-01-9
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ 23.0 23.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ "Law and disorder", The Economist, Dec 11th 2013.
- ↑ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7141970.stm
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
