Single or Return - the official history of the Transport Salaried Staffs' Association

Table 55

Railway Clerks' Association Leaflet No.1*

This association receives into membership all clerical workers in any department of any railway in Great Britain and Ireland, but supernumerary or temporary clerks will not be eligible for membership unless they have been continuously employed for not less than two years, and are under the age that will allow them to be appointed on the permanent staff of the company by whom they are engaged. It is divided into two distinct sections, as follows:-

(a) The improvement of the conditions, and the protection and defence of the rights and interests of railway clerks. The principal objects of this section are:

The organisation of railway clerks for the purpose of obtaining better and more equitable conditions of service.
To lessen the number of hours of employment.
To obtain an increase of the present inadequate salaries.
To protect members against petty tyranny, and unjust treatment in suspension or dismissal.
To ensure promotion by years of faithful service, instead of by favouritism.
To obtain the employment of regularly-employed supernumerary clerks.
To secure a revision of the present unsatisfactory method of granting holidays.
To provide legal assistance in cases connected with a member's employment, in obtaining justice or defending him against injustice.
To render pecuniary assistance to members when out of employment:
- 15 shillings per week for ten weeks
- 7s. 6d. per week for a further ten weeks, etc
To obtain official recognition by the Board of Trade and in Acts of Parliament governing the workers on railways.
To promote a good and fair understanding, and regulate the relations between employers and employees.
To extend fraternal intercourse amongst railway clerks.
Terms of membership:
- Entrance fee, 1s.;
- contributions 6d. per calendar month

(b) Benevolent Funds - To provide for the assistance of clerks and their families in times of distress and old age. (NB - This section is optional, but open to members of the Association only.)

Contributions - Convalescent Home Fund, 2d. per calendar month; Superannuation Fund, 6d. per calendar month. (For details as to benefits, etc., see separate extent). Twelve or more clerks at any place where there is no branch can obtain permission for the establishment of a branch on forwarding their names and addresses to the general secretary. All railway clerks are urgently requested to join the association and assist in its development to the utmost extent

* Adopted at the RCA Annual Conference on 26th June 1898; reprinted in the Railway Herald 14th July 1900.