Police strike


A police strike is a potential tactic when law enforcement workers are embroiled in a labour dispute. Sometimes military personnel are called in to keep order or discipline the strikers. Police strikes have the potential to cause civil unrest.

List of police strikes

Europe

Legality

In many jurisdictions, it is illegal for police to strike because of the potential instability and public insecurity that can result.

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 balloted members in 2013 for the right to strike but failed to gain enough signatures to change the law.

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.