In the Boston Police Strike, Boston police officers went on strike on September 9, 1919. They sought recognition for their trade union and improvements in wages and working conditions. Police Commissioner Edwin Upton Curtis denied that police officers had any right to form a union, much less one affiliated with a larger organization like the American Federation of Labor (AFL). Attempts at reconciliation between the Commissioner and the police officers, particularly on the part of Boston's Mayor Andrew James Peters, failed.
During the strike, Boston experienced several nights of lawlessness. Several thousand members of the State Guard, supported by volunteers, restored order. Press reaction both locally and nationally described the strike as Bolshevik-inspired and directed at the destruction of civil society. The strikers were called "deserters" and "agents of Lenin."[1]
Samuel Gompers of the AFL recognized that the strike was damaging the cause of labor in the public mind and advised the strikers to return to work. Commissioner Curtis refused to re-hire the striking policemen. He was supported by Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge, whose rebuke of Gompers earned him a national reputation. The strike proved a setback for labor unions, and the AFL discontinued its attempts to organize police officers for another two decades. Coolidge won the Republican nomination for vice-president of the U.S. in the 1920 presidential election.n 1895, the Massachusetts legislature transferred control of the Boston police department from Boston's mayor to the governor of Massachusetts, whom it authorized to appoint a five-person board of commissioners to manage the department. In 1906, the legislature abolished that board and gave the governor the authority to name a single commissioner to a term of five years, subject to removal by the governor. The mayor and the city continued to have responsibility for the department's expenses and the physical working conditions of its employees, but the commissioner controlled department operations and the hiring, training, and discipline of the police officers.[2]
In 1918, the salary for patrolmen was set at $1,400 a year. Police officers had to buy their own uniforms and equipment which cost over $200. New recruits received $730 during their first year, which increased annually to $821.25 and $1000, and to $1,400 after six years.[3] In the years following World War I, inflation dramatically eroded the value of a police officer's salary. From 1913 to May 1919, the cost of living rose by 76%, while police wages rose just 18%.[2] Discontent and restiveness among the Boston police force grew as they compared their wages and found they were earning less than an unskilled steelworker, half as much as a carpenter or mechanic and 50 cents a day less than a streetcar conductor. Boston city laborers were earning a third more on an hourly basis.[3]
Police officers had an extensive list of grievances. They worked ten-hour shifts and typically recorded weekly totals between 75 and 90 hours.[a] They were not paid for time spent on court appearances.[2] They also objected to being required to perform such tasks as "delivering unpaid tax bills, surveying rooming houses, taking the census, or watching the polls at election" and checking the backgrounds of prospective jurors as well as serving as "errand boys" for their officers.[5] They complained about having to share beds and the lack of sanitation, baths, and toilets[2] at many of the 19 station houses where they were required to live, most of which dated to before the Civil War. The Court Street station had four toilets for 135 men, and one bathtub.
