Post Office Workers

A Trade Union and Social History

Alan Clinton

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2026
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• eBook ISBN:
  9781040863909
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Originally published in 1984, this book provides the first full account of the lives and aspirations of those who have worked in Britain to deliver mail, convey telegrams and transmit telephone conversations from the beginnings of such activities to the middle of the 20th century. For many years the British Post Office was the prototype public enterprise and the largest employer of labour in the world. Although the book centres on the trade union activities of Post Office workers, it places them fully in the context of the social, economic and technological progress of the 19th and 20th centuries. Wages and conditions in the Post Office became a matter for political debate, especially after trade unions were 'recognised' in 1906. There is much in this book about the particular character of trade union organisation in the Post Office and there is a full account of the special contribution of the Union of Post Office Workers/Union of Communication Workers and their predecessors to the trade union and labour movement as a whole. The later chapters cover a period of huge organisational and technological change. This is a major study of a facet of UK national life which remains a classic book in the area.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Plates
• Preface
• Abbreviations and Notes
• 1 Introduction: Post Office Workers and their Unions
• 2 ‘A Powerful Engine of Civilisation’: The Post Office Before 1920
• 3 Post Office Workers in the Age of Expansion
• 4 Public Servants and Trade Unionists: 1840-1920
• 5 Sabbatarians and Sinners: 1840-1870
• 6 Founding the Associations: 1870-1891
• 7 The Inquiries and After: 1895-1919
• 8 From Associations to Union, 1891-1920
• 9 From Service to Business: The Post Office since 1920
• 10 The State of the Union
• 11 The UPWand its World
• 12 Bargaining under Whitleyism, in Depression and War: 1920-45
• 13 Bargaining in the Great Boom and after: 1945-71
• 14 From Post Office to Communication Worker
• Sources and Bibliography
• Appendices
• Index