The Sign and Display Trades Union (SDTU) was a British

trade union A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages ...

that existed between 1917 and 1972. Formed in 1917 as the National Union of Sign, Glass and Ticket Writers and Kindred Trades it represented workers engaged as a

sign A sign is an object, quality, event, or entity whose presence or occurrence indicates the probable presence or occurrence of something else. A natural sign bears a causal relation to its object—for instance, thunder is a sign of storm, or me ...

glass Glass is an amorphous (non-crystalline solid, non-crystalline) solid. Because it is often transparency and translucency, transparent and chemically inert, glass has found widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in window pane ...

poster A poster is a large sheet that is placed either on a public space to promote something or on a wall as decoration. Typically, posters include both typography, textual and graphic elements, although a poster may be either wholly graphical or w ...

ticket Ticket or tickets may refer to: Slips of paper * Lottery ticket * Parking ticket, a ticket confirming that the parking fee was paid (and the time of the parking start) * Toll ticket, a slip of paper used to indicate where vehicles entered a to ...

writer, or in any branch of subsidiary and allied trades.University of Warwick Archive: SDT
Retrieved December 2010 The union remained active during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. Between 1939-44, correspondence covered general union matters such as

wage A wage is payment made by an employer to an employee for work (human activity), work done in a specific period of time. Some examples of wage payments include wiktionary:compensatory, compensatory payments such as ''minimum wage'', ''prevailin ...

claims and holiday allowances and a Cinema Poster Trade Joint Agreement was negotiated. In 1944, the Sign and Display Trades Union signed an agreement of mutual recognition with the National Association of Theatrical and Kine Employees (NATKE), acknowledging the demarcation between the two unions in the cinema industry. The National Union of Sign, Glass and Ticket Writers and Kindred Trades changed its name to the Sign and Display Trades Union in 1945.University of Warwick Archive: TUC SDTU records
Retrieved December 2010 In 1949 two other unions, the Northern Glass Workers' Employees' Association and the National Society of Decorative Glass Workers of the United Kingdom, transferred their engagements to the Sign and Display Trades Union. In 1958 the SDTU was involved in a dispute with Glasgow

neon sign In the signage industry, neon signs are electric signs lighted by long luminous gas-discharge tubes that contain rarefied neon or other gases. They are the most common use for neon lighting, which was first demonstrated in a modern form in Decem ...

manufacturers; ''Laird Neon''. Glasgow University Principal, Hector Hetherington, was appointed as arbitrator. In 1972 the union transferred its engagements to the National Society of Operative Printers, Graphical and Media Personnel. At this point, it had fewer than 500 members.John Gennard and Peter Bain, ''A History of the Society of Graphical and Allied Trades'', p.41. ,

General Secretaries

:1923–1938: J. G. Copeland :1937–1972: A. C. Torode

References

{{reflist

External links

Catalogue of the SDTU archives
held at the

Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick The Modern Records Centre (MRC) is the specialist archive service of the University of Warwick in Coventry, England, located adjacent to the Central Campus Library. It was established in October 1973 and holds the world's largest archive collect ...

Trade unions established in 1917 Trade unions disestablished in 1972 Defunct trade unions of the United Kingdom 1917 establishments in the United Kingdom Printing trade unions Trade unions based in London