Union of Communication Workers

The union was founded in 1919 as the Union of Post Office Workers (UPW) by the merger of the Postmen's Federation, Postal and Telegraph Clerks' Association and the Fawcett Association. It achieved official recognition, and as a result, in 1920 the London Postal Porters' Association, Central London Postmen's Association, Tracers' Association, Tube Staff Association, Messengers' Association and Sorters' Association all merged with it.Arthur Ivor Marsh, Trade Union Handbook, p. 401. It was banned legally from TUC membership from 1927 to 1946.{{cite book|author1=David Butler|author2=Gareth Butler|title=British political facts, 1900-1985|year=1986|publisher=Macmillan|isbn=978-0-333-39948-4|page=366}} Its longest strike was for 7 weeks in 1971.

It changed its name in 1980, and merged with the National Communications Union in 1995 to form the Communication Workers' Union.

The union sponsored Labour Party candidates in each Parliamentary election. From 1927 until the end of World War II, the union was legally barred from affiliating to the party, so its candidates in that period are omitted from many sources.{{cite book |last1=Clinton |first1=Alan |title=Post Office Workers: A Trade Union and Social History |date=1984 |publisher=George Allen and Unwin |location=London |isbn=9780043310861 |pages=672–676}}{{cite book |last1=Parker |first1=James |title=Trade unions and the political culture of the Labour Party, 1931-1940 |date=2017 |publisher=University of Exeter |location=Exeter |url=https://ore.exeter.ac.uk/repository/bitstream/handle/10871/32856/ParkerJ.pdf}}

:1919: William Bowen{{cite book |last1=Clinton |first1=Alan |title=Post Office Workers |date=1984 |publisher=George Allen and Unwin |isbn=0043310869|page=664}}

:1936: T. J. Hodgson

:1944: Charles Geddes

:1956: Ron Smith

:1967: Thomas Jackson

:1982: Alan Tuffin

:1992: Alan Johnson

:1919: Walter Baker

:1931: James Paterson

:1941: Charles Geddes

:1944: G. A. Stevens

:1951: Richard Hayward

:1956: L. V. Andrews

:1967: Norman Stagg

:1980: Alan Tuffin

:1982: Tony Clarke

:1993: Derek Hodgson

:1919: Will Lockyer

:1935: W. T. Leicester

:1947: A. H. Wood

:1953: Ron Smith

:1956: E. R. Mercer

:1962: Fred Moss

:1981: Fred Binks

:1988: Derek Walsh

{{Portal|Organized labour}}

• Edgar Hardcastle

{{reflist}}

• [https://mrc.epexio.com/records/UPW Catalogue of the UCW archives], held at the Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick

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Category:Trade unions established in 1919

Category:Trade unions disestablished in 1995

Category:Defunct trade unions of the United Kingdom

Category:Communications trade unions

Category:1919 establishments in the United Kingdom

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