Note 614 — Chapter IX

From 1913 onward a persistent attempt to establish a Trade Union was made by many of the Police and Prison Officers, which was resisted by the Home Secretary, as responsible for the Metropolitan Police, and by all the Local Authorities. In 1913 the Police and Prison Officers’ Union was formed by ex-Inspector Symes, and in 1917 it was reorganised, without securing either recognition or sanction. Cases of “victimisation” having occurred, there was a sudden strike on August 29, 1918, which was participated in by nearly the whole of the police in many London divisions. This took the world (and also the criminal population) by surprise; but through good-humoured handling by the Prime Minister (who received the Executive Committee of the Union and told them that “the Union could not be recognised during the war”), the Government persuaded the men promptly to resume their duties, with a cessation of “victimisation” for joining the Union and a substantial increase of pay. When hostilities ceased, the Union expected some measure of official sanction, but none was accorded, and grievances remained unredressed. On July 31, 1919, a second strike was suddenly called, which resulted in failure, only a couple of thousand men coming out in London, and a few hundred in Liverpool, Birkenhead, and elsewhere, together with a small number of prison warders. At Liverpool and Birkenhead there was serious looting of shops and public-houses by turbulent crowds. The authorities stood firm, the Home Secretary refusing all sanction for the establishment of a Trade Union in the police force and prison staff, and summarily dismissing all the strikers, at the same time announcing large concessions in the way of wages, promotion, and pensions, and conceding, not a Trade Union, but the establishment of an elective organisation of the police force, by grades, entitled to make formal representations and complaints. This concession was embodied in the Police Act, 1919, which explicitly prohibited to the police either membership of, or affiliation to, any Trade Union or political organisation. The dismissed policemen were not reinstated, but the Government informally assisted some of them to obtain other employment.