title: Civil Service Union
text: # Civil Service Union
  
  The Civil Service Union (CSU) was a trade union in the United Kingdom which existed between 1917 and 1988. It represented lower-paid staff within the British Civil Service such as cleaners and messengers.
  
  ## History
  
  The union was formed in 1917 as the Association of Government Messengers and Attendants and later became the Government Minor and Manipulative Grades Association. The union primarily represented staff who worked in the Civil Service, but also in other public organisations.
  
  The CSU was seen as being more militant than other unions within the civil service and was, along with the Civil and Public Services Association, the first to adopt a strike policy backed by a fighting fund, in 1969. The CSU also supported introducing a closed shop policy within the civil service. By the late 1970s the CSU had 46,827 members, of whom 45,732 worked in the civil service. In January 1988 the union joined with the Society of Civil and Public Servants to form the National Union of Civil and Public Servants.
  
  ## Leadership
  
  ### General Secretaries
  
      1933: Dick Gifford
      1943: Victor Carvell
      1963: John Vickers
      1977: Les Moody
      1982: John Sheldon
  
  ### Deputy General Secretaries
  
      1944: Robert Anderson
      1953: Vacant
      1954: Zed Smith
      1960: Jon Vickers
      1962: Les Moody
      1978: John Sheldon
      1982:
  
  ### Presidents
  
      1933: W. Ewart Llewellyn
      1938: George McDouall
      1945: Harold Newton
      1967: Monty Rose
      1984: Margaret Morrison
  