Explore all stories - TUC 150 Stories

Eyewitness to Cable Street

Pioneering trade unionist and suffragette

The Trico strike for equal pay

The Woolf’s Strike

Organising migrant workers

Demanding a minimum wage

Keeping the family together

Thirty years to equality at work

Disabled workers

National League of the Blind

"Justice not Charity"

Health and Safety

Joint Production Committees

Protecting workers

“Let’s open up the world and bring light and knowledge in”

Health and Safety

Health and Safety Act 1974

Dagenham Women’s Strike

How Ford’s striking women drove the Equal Pay Act

Global Solidarity

Hans Gottfurcht

How the TUC helped to keep European unionism alive during WWII

The Tolpuddle Martyrs

Clementina Black

Chris Braithwaite

Sailor, docker and activist

The great Penrhyn quarry strike

Capturing the public imagination

Bristol bus boycott

Bristol’s forgotten civil rights scandal

Oliver Kilbourn

The Pitmen Painters

Founder of the NHS

Global Solidarity

G.H. Stuart-Bunning

The International Labour Organisation

Health and Safety

Samuel Plimsoll

The sailors' hero

Costing workers their jobs and their families

The founding of the TUC

150 years on and going strong

"We are those lions, Mr Manager.”

Let Robeson Sing

A beacon of hope at GCHQ

Low Pay Commission

"We knew we had to set up our own union"

Ricky Tomlinson

“My innocence has been proved time and again”

Ending discrimination on the buses

The weavers strike

Success for the first all-woman strike committee

The Wapping Dispute

Margaret Bondfield

Shop floor rebel

Trade unions during WWII

Building relationships and boosting morale

Kevin Horne and Barbara Jackson

“I ran for my life through a field, horses chasing me.”

Mary Bamber and Bessie Braddock

Like mother, like daughter

The pioneer behind 30 women’s trade unions

The first female president of the TUC

Playing a blinder for women

Health and Safety

Making London the safest Olympics ever

Match Women’s Strike

The Jarrow March

Demanding a new deal

Memories of the general strike

Burston School Strike

The longest strike in history

Taking on the print barons

"A burning sense of what was just"

Greater Manchester

Dorothy Ratcliffe and Susan Crosby

Equal pay in Yorkshire school canteens

Fighting back against sexual harassment

Global Solidarity

Supporting Polish trade unionists

Campaigning for recognition

Everyday Heroes

Poet, socialist and trade union leader

Revolutionary Rosie

Mass Strike in Dublin 1913

Apprenticeships

Championing Young Workers

Fighting wage slavery

Everyday Heroes

Order of Industrial Heroism

Celebrating working heroes

Trade union leader and all-round firebrand

The real-life hero from Pride

Global Solidarity

The 1889 London dockworkers’ strike

Five steps to success

Best foot forward – from redundancy to a shoe business

84 years of activism

7 things you should know

Saving Steel Workers' Pensions

The man who redefined the TUC

Miner, socialist, pacifist, leader

10 things you need to know

Bringing socialism to Liverpool

Disabled workers

Creating the right balance for work and family life

Health and Safety

60 seconds at Sellafield

“Actors have always been part of the gig economy”

Millie Apedo-Amah

The vital role of a train guard

Health and Safety

Alan Knight MBE

“I want to make sure young footballers don’t go through what I had to”

Alisdair Kairns

Not all glitz and glamour at the movies

Health and Safety

60 seconds on a North Sea rig

Supporting women survivors of violence

Yorkshire and Humber

Lisa Greenfield

“People always want to learn”

When we ‘do the business’ for our members, we can build a stronger union

Five things I learnt from being a union member

Squeezing our public service professionals

5 reasons for musicians to join a union

Barry Downey, Firefighter

Squeezing our public sector professionals

Musician's Union

Four reasons why musicians need unions

Health and Safety

Janise Corsfield

“I’ve always been safety conscious”

Craig Johnstone

The Churchill Cleaners: five tips to winning a dispute

People don’t say no enough

Satnam Singh Ner

Bringing diversity into the workplace

“The classes are a great networking event.”

“A 200-word essay changed my life”

Wasting no time to build a movement

Pauline Carwood

"30 years ago women didn't drive trains"

Disabled workers

Changing the narrative

Galvanising a community in times of strife

Squeezing our public sector professionals

Dudley Hackling

‘It all comes down to communication and confidence’

Helping girls plan for life after football

Firefighter and FBU official

Royal College of Midwives

Jillian Ireland and Sara Fripp

Singing it loud

“A union is about being united and working together”

Fighting for permanent contracts

Angela Rayner MP

A remarkable journey to Westminster

Many routes to an education

Knocking on every door

Show the love – hug your school!

Anne Cox, headteacher

Canon Steven Saxby

Five reasons why faith workers need unions

Galvanising a community in times of strife

Five ways my union supported my transition

Charlotte Gardner

Leading a network of 50 reps

"Without my union, I wouldn't have survived"

Changing the conversation about mental health at work

Gail Cartwright, Midwife

Squeezing our public sector professionals

Global Solidarity

From the college canteen to international leadership

Fighting for change at McDonalds

Building a culture of learning – at every level and background

We turned something negative into something really positive

Booking in time to destress

A young postie with a passion for fairness

Yorkshire and Humber

Jake O’Malley

Three steps to building a strong union

Queueing up to learn

Evelyn Martin MBE

A lifetime of learning

A no-nonsense approach on the shop floor

“It’s been a sacrifice but it was worth it”

Winning for care workers on zero-hours

“It’s a privilege to be involved with trade unions”

Apprenticeships

“An apprenticeship was a no-brainer”

“An outstanding trade unionist”

Health and Safety

“We’ll never know how many lives we’ve saved”

Public Services

Deborah Bell and Karen McArthur

The faces behind library losses

Why I came out as gay at a school assembly

Campaigning for paid holiday for everyone

Cricket ball makers strike

Small but mighty

The home of the British trade union movement

People’s March for Jobs

Fiercely intelligent, influential and inspirational

Albert Mansbridge

Championing education for working people

“Journalism was suddenly being equated with espionage”

14 stories

Fighting for the future

4 stories

Disabled Workers

Challenging stereotypes

9 stories

Fighting for racial equality

6 stories

A new deal for working people

Trade unionists demanding change

9 stories

International Women’s Day

Women trade unionists winning equal pay

4 stories

End the public sector pay squeeze

Public sector workers explain the impact of pay cuts

7 stories

100 years of suffrage

Women trade unionists fighting for equality

11 stories

Building safer workplaces

Protecting workers' health and safety

8 stories

Learning with your union

Because everyone has the right to an education

7 stories

Celebrating the work of reps and members

14 stories

Working peoples' last resort