Police Unionization Case Study

The Boston Police Strike of 1919 was the result of the intolerable conditions under which the police officer’s worked and the refusal of key city and state officials to act to improve those conditions. On the day of September the 9th 1919, almost three quarters of Boston 's police force failed to show up to work. The police strike was a political windfall for the governor of Massachusetts and was fodder for the anti- union stance of government and business of the day. The backlash resulted in police departments across the country not to be afforded the right to organize for the next twenty years.

As a result of this "threat" of entering a labor union, the commissioner of police, Edward Curtis, told the men that no policemen were to join a union. After men decided to join the American Federation of Labor, Curtis decided to suspend those men. Leaders of the union were angered by this action and told the commissioner not to punish the men or else all union members would go on strike. Compromises were brought the Curtis, but none were accepted. Soon, a vast majority of the police department was on strike. It did not take long for violence in the streets to set in. Many volunteers were put in the line of duty. Angry mobs ran the streets, and many newspapers ran articles such as, "Riots in Boston", "Terror Reigns in City". This was a disgrace to the city of Boston. After eight deaths of seventy wounded, and thousand of dollars of damage done, the cities order was finally restored. The officers were given the raises that were requested and no longer had to pay for there uniforms.

Ronald Weitzer “Incidents of police misconduct and public opinion” Department of Sociology, George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052, USA .

Mistrust and opposition of law enforcement officers with the communities they serve continues to be a situation that garners much public attention. Allegations of police brutality, over policing, and militarization of the police are prevalent among campus discussions. Activists are calling for reform and accountability of law enforcement agencies. Is there a problem with policing in America?

Hundreds of thousands of workers from many different unions were not happy with the pay and working conditions. The members of the unions went on a five day strike wanting higher pay after it had been lowered for two years because of World War I. In the same year, in September 1919 Radical William Z. Foster, who served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party, made an effort to organize the steel industry. This resulted in over three hundred thousand steel workers walking off the job. The police of Boston also went on strike in the September as well. Just as the union workers the Boston Police also wanted higher wages and shorter working hours. However, the police commissioner did not want to organize a police union and suspended the leaders from the force. The result of the commissioner not giving the officers what they had asked for frustrated many officers and thousands of police officers went on strike. Once the city got wind of what happened. “When the Boston Police went on strike on September 9, the country’s leading newspapers sounded the alarm bells.” This forced Governor Calvin Coolidge to call out the National Guard to restore order in the

The 1919 Boston Police Strike took place against the backdrop of general distrust of unions. The AFL, the union that the police were part of, were in their own struggle for acceptance as a legitimate organization by the public. Unions were relatively new and they were associated with the violence that striking workers perpetrated, creating suspicion about unions in general. The Boston Police Strike, unfortunately, brought so many issues of the day to head: Communism which was an issue to Americans because of the Russian Worker 's Revolution and their efforts to spread communism throughout the world, anti-police attitudes and anti-union sentiment. WWI ended in 1918, and in 1919 the largely Irish-American police force in Boston voted to

In looking for answers as to why police brutality is such a big issue today, we see that the problem lies in past actions that were not dealt properly. First, Prohibition reduced respect for authority and law enforcement, as the police committed various unconstitutional acts. Next, the War on Drugs and the War on Terror changed the image of law enforcement from that of a peacekeeper to that of a domestic soldier. As a result of this inaction, American society finds itself in a crisis situation, where people cannot trust the police and where police are struggling to regain credibility with the American population.

Before the police went on strike, in Boston, many other workers had begun to strike out due to unfair wages, being

The pedigree of this literary review will outline some of the dimensions and elements that provide empirical research by reliable researchers using reliable methods. The purpose of this paper is threefold: The first purpose is to review the communication and organizational literature on authority in order to illustrate how police brutality assist and continues to evolve. Although the Federal government will not recognize “brutality” among law enforcement, but has classified it as “excessive force.” Excessive force is when law enforcement officers are making arrests, maintaining order, and defending life, law enforcement officers are allowed to use whatever force is “reasonably “necessary (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2015). This definition of authority can be used to validate the degree of ill-treatment that descends from the individual interpretation of law enforcement. The second purpose of this review is to review if Congress is powerless in approving non-lethal weapons for law enforcement. The purpose of a non-lethal weapon is to reduce assassinations at the hand of law enforcers when they need to physically restrain a dangerous person (Andersson & McCray, 2012), and thirdly, determine why black Americans are more likely to be restrained with a lethal weapon as opposed to a non-lethal weapon. The results of this research will show

The three eras discussed in this week’s reading are the Political, Reform, and Community-based eras (The fourth era detailing policing in the 21st Century hasn’t been covered yet). The Political Era - 1840-1930 - was characterized by the appointment of police chiefs by local politicians and so were beholden to those that appointed them, often times adjusting the justice they exercised to the benefit of their patron, or rather the politician or party that appointed them. Due to this essentially powerless policing, chiefs tended to be no more than political strong-arms with very little authority over the officers under them. This lack of oversight and control tended towards corrupt or incompetent officers. Because there was virtually no hierarchy or accountability, most officers lacked adequate training which caused poor decisions and unlawful arrests and searches.

In recent months, there have been a number of different riots and demonstrations occurring to show just how displeased our nation is with the current treatment of American citizens by the police. These movements have been created out of the turmoil that ensued after several different civilians were shot down in the streets by police officers after an encounter. It has become easy for people to look at these incidents and consider them isolated, and downplay the problem at hand. However, statistics taken from the United States Department of Justice would show otherwise. During a national survey, police departments were questioned about abuse of authority, and showed us that most departments have an internal discipline problem, where rule infractions, unmoral behavior, and emotional and physical abuse are overlooked. Forty three percent of cops interviewed said that “Always following the rules is not compatible with getting the job done” (Cop Crisis, 2015). When the rules are put to the side, and the reasoning behind the laws and opinions that put those rules into place is lost, then anything can happen. Over half the cops interviewed, fifty two percent said “It is not unusual for a police officer to turn a blind eye to improper

Police Agencies in modern society are a part of the American fabric to serve and protect the American public. The United States currently have more than 15,000 police agencies, (Walker & Katz, 2011). Police Departments across the United States face similar critical issues policing. All police officers face dangers in the job of policing the dangers can emanate from internal and external origins. Police officers have continued to evolve to serve communities by finding better less than lethal alternatives to weapons used. In addition, police departments have continued to keep up with

While the Reform Era worked to professionalize police, as society became more complex, so did the role of the police officer. The Community Policing Era was developed as a result of the need to develop cooperation and positive relationships between the police and public. What developed out of this era was an essential element of community policing – public accountability. Police officers became accountable to their supervisors who in turn became accountable to the community. Accountability can be seen as an honest evaluation of achievement based on clearly defined objectives. Many of these objectives are defined by complex community and social problems; as such police officers require the capacity and flexibility to work on them in a variety of styles and employing a variety of strategies.

The Mollen Commission report noted that "police unions and fraternal organizations can do much to increase professionalism of our police officers....Unfortunately, based on our own observations and on information received from prosecutors, corruption investigators, and high-ranking police officials, police unions sometimes fuel the insularity that characterizes the police culture."(Local Political Culture) The report found a difference of concern for the unions, which protected the interests of individual officers and support the larger interests of their members, finding that, ironically, the PBA "does a great disservice to the vast majority of its members who would be happy to see corrupt cops prosecuted for their crimes and removed from their

Within our police system in America, there are gaps and loopholes that give leeway to police officials who either abuse the authority given to them or do not represent the ethical standards that they are expected to live up to. Because of the nature of police work, there is a potential for deterioration of these ethical and moral standards through deviance, misconduct, corruption, and favoritism. Although these standards are set in place, many police are not held accountable for their actions and can easily get by with the mistreatment of others. While not every police abuses his or her power, the increasingly large percentage that do present a problem that must be recognized by the public as well as those in charge of police departments