ABSTRACT
The first recognition of Trade Unionism in the Post Office was tardy, yet it was a step forward from the individual flunkeyism which patronage on the one side and excessive humility on the other had engendered. In 1902 Austen Chamberlain made recognition more elastic. He accepted memorials sent to him direct, including representations from the Postmen’s Federation signed by the Secretary, who was not in the Service but was a ‘full time’ officer. Authorities differ as to when Trade Unionism in the Post Office began. The date of the creation of the Postal Telegraph Clerks’ Association is given as 1881; that of the United Kingdom Postal Clerks’ Association as 1887. Post Office Trade Unionists had argued for years that their standard of life was determined by the Treasury, which inspired the Department always to argue that that standard must bear strict relation to the standard of the working class as a whole.
