Political
The Communication Workers
Union (CWU) has a political fund, separate from its general fund,
to enable it to run political campaigns and finance political
activities.
There are a host of issues affecting CWU members which have a political dimension. Many of these are specific to the industries in which our members work - primarily posts and telecommunications - but others are of more general relevance to the collective trade union movement.
This political work sometimes involves local lobbying - likely to be more often the case with the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the Northern Ireland Assembly - and often requires lobbying of Government and Parliament at the national level and of the Commission and the Parliament at European Union (EU) level.
The CWU has been affiliated to the Labour Party since the foundation of the Labour Representation Committee in 1900. The Postmen's Federation then affiliated, followed by the newly merged Union of Post Office Workers (UPW) in 1920. On the engineering side, the Post Office Engineering Union (POEU) affiliated in 1963 followed by the National Communications Union (Clerical) section in 1991.
