Communication Managers Association

The development of the CMA can be traced back to 1906 and the formation of the Postal and Telegraph Controlling Officers' Association, later the Post Office Controlling Officer' Association. This organisation helped provide the impetus behind the creation of a Federation of Post Office Supervising Officers which gained recognition from the Postmaster General in 1917. Essentially, from that time until 1951, Supervising Officers were represented by five or six Confederated Unions each with their own structure and Officers, but represented on the National Department Whitley Committee by the Federation, which appointed its first full-time Secretary in Mr. H. E. R. Alefounder, in 1922. In 1951 the first amalgamated Union for managerial and supervisory levels, the Association of Post Office Controlling Officers' was created by the merger of the Post Office Controlling Officers' Association, the Central Telegraph Superintending Officers' Association and the London Postal Superintending Officers' Association. The title ACO remained until the Post Office became a Public Corporation in 1968 when the name was changed to the Post Office Management Staffs' Association. This body continued in being, with the accretion of some smaller unions until 1981, when the name was changed to the Communication Managers Association. The name change was designed to reflect changes in the industry and the Association's representation of staff in the voice and wire telephony arm of the industry. This representation continued until the early nineties when switchroom supervisory staff transferred to the purely BT based managerial union, the Society of Telecom Executives (later Connect). The drive towards a more commercially operated Post Office, the liberalisation of the parcels and mails industry and the increased competition of the 1990's, led the CMA to begin discussions with other unions with the aim of providing a wider range of services and resources and securing greater political clout. The CMA entered into negotiations with the Public Services Union, and then latterly with the MSF. After a full membership ballot, the CMA became a fully fledged autonomous section of the MSF in May 1998.