From the rootstock of clerical organisation in the late nineteenth century civil service, it details the growth of the Union despite the hostility of the newly independent state to the concept of negotiation with its civil servants and its refusal to agree an acceptable conciliation and arbitration scheme.
It is a compelling history of the lowest and overwhelmingly female civil service grades confronting government, and oftentimes the wider labour movement, in its fight for equality, respect, decent working conditions, and progressive career opportunities. It charts the often contrarian role of the CPSU, one of the earliest civil service unions to join the
Irish Trade Union Congress, in shaping the trade union movement within the public service and in positioning the issue of gender equality as central to that movement.
A substantial contribution to Irish labour history, it is essential reading for activists in public service unions, and for students of public administration, modern industrial relations, and the history of governance in the independent Irish state.
