CAB129-53 — Page 14

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(THIS DOCUMENT IS THE PROPERTY OF HER BRITANNIC MAJESTY'S GOVERNMENT)

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CONFIDENTIAL

C. (52) 203

JUNE 18, 1952.

CABINET

68

COPY NO.

RECOGNITION OF POST OFFICE STAFF ASSOCIATIONS:

REPORT OF THE TERRINGTON COMMITTEE

Memorandum by the Postmaster General

I submit for my colleagues' consideration the following text of a statement which I propose to make in Parliament on Wednesday, June 25.

Post Office Headquarters, E.C.1.

JUNE 18, 1952.

D.

I have carefully considered the Report and am very grateful to Lord Terrington and the members of the Committee for their detailed examination of the problems set before them and for the able way in which they have presented all the complicated factors giving rise to those problems. Having carefully followed their arguments, however, the comments furnished by the Staff Sides of the Post Office Whitley Councils and by interested Staff Associations, I am not willing to impose the recommendations of the Report. Any big organisation such as the Post Office is stronger for having well organised and responsible trades unions to deal with. Moreover, and more important than administrative convenience, the dual recognition of riva! unions has a very bad effect on staff relations and on the public service. On the other hand, as Minister in charge of a Government Department I am most reluctant to become involved in questions on how unions should be organised, indeed I see real objections to this in principle and serious dangers in practice. I should indeed not be surprised if the trade union movement itself, on mature reflection, came to feel serious misgivings on these points. From the point of view of Post Office staff as a whole and of the public and trade unions generally, it is most desirable that a dispute of this kind should be settled by the staff themselves and not put to the Minister for decision.

2.

I do not therefore propose to form a final view on the matter in present circumstances. I am convinced that yet further effort should first be made by the staff themselves to reach a settlement, whether on the lines recommended by the Terrington Committee or otherwise, before I am called upon to consider the matter further. Accordingly, I intend to suspend consideration until the early part of next year in order to give the parties concerned the fullest

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