13th August 1947 is a very important and historic day for the entire P and T Trade Union movement. It was on this day that the Union of Posts and Telegraph Workers (UPTW) was formed at a special conference of the then existing three All India Unions viz. All India Postal and RMS Union, Indian Posts and Telegraph Union and Indian Telegraph Association held at New Delhi.
The P and T movement started in the first decade of the 20th century. The Telegraph Workers were organised by Henry Barton who formed the Indian Telegraph Union and led it till his death. Babu Tarapada Mukherjee formed the Calcutta Postal Club, which later became the All India Postal and RMS Union. Indian Posts and Telegraph Union was another union organised. These three unions merged and formed the UPTW with N.M.Joshi as President, Dr. G.Noronha as Vice-President and M.A.Jabbar and O.P.Gupta as Joint General secretaries. Unfortunately another organisation, All India Postal and Lower Grade Staff Union led by V.G.Dalvi kept out of the united organisation in the last moment.
The experience of the I Central Pay Commission in 1946, the necessity of united working together for a better deal from the then British Government and the historic strike of the Postal employees in 1946 – all these created a favourable situation for the merger. Probably the oncoming independence of the country also might have influenced the leaders. Thus, 2 days before India got Independence, UPTF was formed as the united trade union of the P and T Employees.
It took another seven years to amalgamate all the other unions and form the National Federation of Post and Telegraphs Employees which was on 24th November 1954 which continued till 1985 before bifurcating as NFPE and NFTE after the bifurcation of the P and T Department.
On this 64th anniversary of UPTW, all of us have to remember the sacrifices and struggles organised by our earlier leaders which improved the condition of the P and T workers and made them one of the best organised union in the country.

13th August has got another importance. It was on this day in 1970 that K.G.Bose and A.S.Rajan were elected as the President and General Secretary of the NFPTE in the Vijayawada Federal Council, defeating the revisionist group led by O.P.Gupta and D.Gnaniah. For the first time, in NFPTE a worker president was elected. Till that time all the presidents were trade union leaders, who were not from P and T. The election of K.G.Bose, the revolutionary leader as President of NFPTE, started another glorious chapter of the P and T Trade union movement.