In 1919, the Boston Police Department announced their intention to go on strike in response to their
In 1919, the Boston Police Department announced their intention to go on strike in response to their low wages, poor living conditions (unmarried cops were expected to live in filthy, rat infested barracks), and having to pay for their own boots and uniforms (which occasionally got eaten by the aforementioned rats).Contrasting with the somewhat infamous power wielded by police unions in the United States in the present, Police Commissioner Edwin Curtis and future president Governor Calvin Coolidge ignored their complaints. In their view, strikes were the work of undemocratic foreign communists, and thus threats by workers saying that they’ll go on strike should be ignored……Leading to the events of September 9, 1919, more than 1,100 Boston Police officers walked off the job, calling Curtis’ bluff.This in turn lead to several hours of lawlessness within the city, as both poorer residents from Boston itself and criminals traveling into town by train promptly engaged in robbing stores, smashing windows and flipping over cars while what few cops left around were pelted with stones and bricks.Coolidge attempted to hire students and faculty from the nearby Harvard University to act as a volunteer police force (you can probably imagine how that went), with the governor using his actions during the subsequent riots as a platform to run for president.Eventually Boston’s Mayor Andrew Peters asked Governor Coolidge to call in the Massachusetts State Guard and local militia, who managed to gain some kind of control of the situation by shooting into the crowds, killing five.After things calmed down and the strike ended, Curtis refused to rehire any of the officers that went on strike, with the press firmly blaming the strikers for the subsequent chaos, and seemingly out of spite gave the newly hired replacement cops the pay increase that the strikers had asked for. The cops of Boston wouldn’t be allowed to form a new union for another fifty years, and even then only after another strike. -- source link
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