A police strike is a potential tactic when law enforcement workers are embroiled in a

labour dispute A labor dispute is a disagreement between an employer and employees regarding the terms of employment. This could include disputes regarding conditions of employment, fringe benefits, hours of work, tenure, and wages to be negotiated during co ...

. Sometimes military personnel are called in to keep order or discipline the strikers. Police strikes have the potential to cause

civil unrest Civil disorder, also known as civil disturbance, civil unrest, civil strife, or turmoil, are situations when law enforcement and security forces struggle to maintain public order or tranquility. Causes Any number of things may cause civil di ...

List of police strikes

Europe

* Great Britain (1918, 1919) * Paris general strike during Liberation (1944) * Ljubljana (1993) *Ireland (1998) * Amsterdam (2007) * Ljubljana (2010)

North America

* 1919 Winnipeg General Strike * Boston Police Strike (1919) * Detroit (1967) *

Youngstown, Ohio Youngstown is a city in Mahoning County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Ohio, 11th-most populous city in Ohio with a population of 60,068 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The Mahoning ...

(1967) *Cicero Police Department, Illinois (1969) *Berwyn Police, Illinois (1969) *Des Plaines Police, Illinois (1969) *Harvey Police Illinois (1969) *Waukegan, Illinois (1970) *Lake County Sheriffs Police, Illinois (1970) *Skokie Police, Illinois (1970) *Wheeling Police, Illinois (1970) *Skokie, Illinois (1975) *Maywood Police Department *

Montreal, Quebec Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

(1969) *

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

(1971), *

Baltimore Baltimore is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 census and estimated at 568,271 in 2024, it is the 30th-most populous U.S. city. The Baltimore metropolitan area is the 20th-large ...

(1974) * San Francisco (1975), * Cleveland (1978) * New Orleans (1979) * Birmingham (1979) * Toledo (1979) * Santa Barbara (1980) * Milwaukee, Wisconsin (1981) * Corona, California (1983)

South America

* Bahia, Brazil (2001) * Alagoas, Brazil (2001) * Brazil (2004) * 2010 Ecuador crisis. Police strike/coup partly in relation to planned benefit reductions. After a state of emergency and the near assassination of the president, the government steps away from planned cuts to police and military benefits. Police and military pay is then also increased. * Bahia, Brazil (2012) * 2013 police revolts in Argentina. Police strike over the value of their non inflation-indexed pay being eroded by rampant background

inflation In economics, inflation is an increase in the average price of goods and services in terms of money. This increase is measured using a price index, typically a consumer price index (CPI). When the general price level rises, each unit of curre ...

. After days of national chaos, individual regional police forces receive pay increases ranging between 33% and 45%."Law and disorder"

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, Dec 11th 2013. * 2017 Military Police of Espírito Santo strike in Brazil * Ceará State, Brazil (2020) Police strike * 2020 Buenos Aires' State Police strike

Australia

1923 Victorian Police strike The 1923 Victorian police strike occurred in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. In November 1923, on the eve of the Melbourne Spring Racing Carnival, half the police force in Melbourne police strike, went on strike over the operation of a superviso ...

Asia

* Shanghai (1940) * New Delhi (1946)

Africa

* Egypt (1948) *Nigeria (2002)

Dynamics

Legality

United Kingdom

Police officers in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

are currently banned from taking strike action under the

Police Act 1996 The Police Act 1996 (c. 16) is an Act of Parliament (UK), act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which defined the current police areas in England and Wales, constituted Police Authority, police authorities for those areas, and set out the re ...

. Police officers have been banned from striking since the passage of the Police Act 1919. The Police Federation of England and Wales balloted members in 2013 for the right to strike but failed to gain enough signatures to petition the government to amend the legislation.

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. 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).

References

{{Use dmy dates, date=May 2017 * Labor disputes Law enforcement