SUB‐POSTMASTERS … PRIVATE TRADERS AND TRADE UNIONISTS
| Published date | 01 March 1965 |
| Author | Kenneth Brown |
| Date | 01 March 1965 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8543.1965.tb00885.x |
SUB-POSTMASTERS..
.
PRIVATE TRADERS AND TRADE UNIONISTS
KENNETH
BROWN*
SUB-POSTMASTERS have a long and distinguished record of public service.
It is over 300 years since Sub-Post Offices were first established by Oliver
Cromwell’s Postmaster-General in
1656.
He set up five Sub-offices to
serve lawyers at Westminster, the Temple, and Lincoln’s Inn.
There are now over
23,000
Sub-Postmasters serving the people every-
where. Collectively, they handle the major part of the nation’s Post Office
counter business, control about
7,000
mail delivery offices, and operate
more than
IOO
telephone exchanges. Yet not one of them enjoys the full
privileges of a Civil Servant, and probably
20,000
must look to some other
income for a means of supplementing their sub-office salary. Hence the
existence in villages, towns and cities throughout the United Kingdom of a
substantial group of independent private traders, who are also members
of their own trade union
:
the National Federation of Sub-Postmasters.
Why should tradesmen be trade unionists
?
How can Sub-Postmasters reconcile their conflicting interests as both
employees (of the Post Office) and employers (of their own staff)
?
What makes men and women from a mainly middle-class/shopkeeper
background, with traditional doubts about the respectability of trade
unions, join and actively support their own union?
What is the relationship between these ‘private enterprise Postmasters’
and the career Civil Servants who serve the G.P.O., that monolithic
monopoly which is Britain’s oldest nationalized undertaking
?
These questions are hard to answer and no glib, smoothly-phrased reply
would withstand close examination. This is not surprising, since the duality
of functions is almost unique
-
certainly within the public service. In fact,
the only other group of ‘outsiders’ associated with the Civil Service in this
way are the Local Branch Office Managers employed by the Ministry
of Labour. They are few in number but do a useful job in areas remote from
ordinary Employment Exchanges. For the most part the work of Branch
Managers is combined with some other occupation involving the
use
of an
office, such as an Estate Agent. In some places a Sub-Postmaster does the
work, busying himself with
a
triplicity of occupations. Ironically, he is a
man with three jobs, handing out dole money to men without work!
Plurality of employment is nothing new to Sub-Postmasters. Up to the
time when mail coaches began swinging and creaking along mud-ridged
roads, post offices were to be found as part of local inns. These were the
*
Former Assistant General Secretary, National Federation
of
Sub-Postmasters
3’
C
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