A blue flu is a type of strike action undertaken by police officers in which a large number simultaneously use sick leave. A blue flu is a preferred strike action by police in some parts of the United States where police strikes are prohibited by law. At times, the matter goes to court, such as when officers need to undergo medical examination to prove genuine illness. A 2019 opinion piece in The New York Times contrasted blue flu with a strike, calling it "a quiet form of protest, with no stated principles or claim for public attention or sympathy." Unlike most strikes, blue flu tends to be focused and of short duration.

History

The term itself and similar terms have been used where unions could be heavily penalized. Alternatives to these terms include "slowdown" and "virtual work stoppage." In the United States blue flu work stoppages have been used many times:

Reasons

Some of the common reasons for these actions are: Sometimes the proclaimed reason masks something else, such as when enforcing an unpopular decision is claimed to be a contract violation. In the view of police abolitionist Josie Duffy Rice blue flu is the result of: calls for police accountability or a perceived public critique of policing or police culture of any kind, of in an attempt to blackmail the public into abandoning attempts at police reform and/or removing public officials who advocate accountability.

In popular culture

In Mr. Monk and the Blue Flu, a novel based on the TV series Monk, the main character is given a chance to return to his city's police force during a labor dispute. It's distasteful to him that "he'll be a 'scab'." A blue flu strike was also a background premise to "The Party's Over", a season 5 episode of CSI NY, aired in 2009; as well as an eponymous episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine in 2021. The idea of the Blue Flu was referenced in the Babylon 5 episode By Any Means Necessary in 1995, with respect to a labour strike. "Barney Miller", a sitcom about NYPD detectives in a Greenwich Village precinct, ran a two-part Blue Flu episode called "Strike" in March 1977.