Description

Days of Violence. The police strike of 1923 resulted in a weekend orgy of destruction….The strike resulted from a breakdown in communication between an inept Chief Commissioner and a manipulative constable determined to be as vindictive as possible. It sucked in the Government and the Police Association. Its most immediate cause was a system of supervision by senior constables in plain clothes which the men bitterly resented. The other major factors leading to the strike were the abolition of police pensions in 1906, the very poor standards of pay and conditions when compared with the New South Wales police and the revolting barrack accommodation in which single men resided. First warning of impending disaster occurred on a Wednesday night shift when twenty-nine men refused to parade at Russell Street. The Chief Commissioner was summoned and the men