Boston police vote to form a union.

Although prohibited by law from doing so, police vote to form the Boston Police Union and apply to join the American Federation of Labor at a meeting in Fay Hall, a second-floor room above today’s J.J. Foley’s Café, at today’s 117 East Berkeley Street (then Dover Street). Police at the time worked 72 to 98-hour weeks, had to buy their own uniforms, and had not had a raise in pay in years. Police Com. Edwin Curtis subsequently suspends the leaders of the movement, prompting a vote by officers to strike in September 1919.*