1971 United Kingdom postal workers strike

The 1971 United Kingdom postal workers strike was a strike in the United Kingdom staged by postal workers between January and March 1971.

A £1 stamp from Scotland produced during the 1971 Postal Strike.

Details

The strike was Britain's first national postal strike and began after postal workers demanded a pay rise of 15–20% then walked out after Post Office managers made a lower offer. The strike began on 20 January and lasted for seven weeks, finally ending with an agreement on Thursday 4 March. After voting over the weekend, the strikers returned to work on Monday 8 March 1971.[1] The strike overlapped with the introduction of decimal currency in the UK.

Private posts

A wide range of officially licensed and unlicensed private posts operated during the strike to fill the gap left by the withdrawal of official postal services. Some were genuine commercial services that provided local, national and international deliveries, but many were set up by stamp collectors and stamp dealers to provide philatelic material for collectors.[2]

See also

References
  1. "First-class post restarts today but 1,000 offices to stay shut" by Alan Hamilton in The Times, Monday 8 March 1971, p.1.
  2. 40th Anniversary of the 1971 Postal Strike by Rodney Gudger, Maidenhead & District Philatelic Society, 2010. Retrieved 27 June 2011.


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