Explore all stories - TUC 150 Stories

Miner, socialist, pacifist, leader

"A burning sense of what was just"

The pioneer behind 30 women’s trade unions

Low Pay Commission

The Trico strike for equal pay

Trade unions during WWII

Building relationships and boosting morale

Saving Steel Workers' Pensions

Apprenticeships

Championing Young Workers

7 things you should know

Health and Safety

Joint Production Committees

Protecting workers

The weavers strike

Success for the first all-woman strike committee

Bristol bus boycott

Bristol’s forgotten civil rights scandal

The great Penrhyn quarry strike

Capturing the public imagination

Revolutionary Rosie

Mass Strike in Dublin 1913

Greater Manchester

Fighting wage slavery

The man who redefined the TUC

Match Women’s Strike

Everyday Heroes

Order of Industrial Heroism

Celebrating working heroes

The first female president of the TUC

Best foot forward – from redundancy to a shoe business

Disabled workers

National League of the Blind

"Justice not Charity"

Ricky Tomlinson

“My innocence has been proved time and again”

The founding of the TUC

150 years on and going strong

Margaret Bondfield

Shop floor rebel

Demanding a minimum wage

Dorothy Ratcliffe and Susan Crosby

Equal pay in Yorkshire school canteens

Global Solidarity

Supporting Polish trade unionists

Clementina Black

Eyewitness to Cable Street

The Woolf’s Strike

Organising migrant workers

84 years of activism

The Wapping Dispute

Mary Bamber and Bessie Braddock

Like mother, like daughter

Trade union leader and all-round firebrand

"We are those lions, Mr Manager.”

The Jarrow March

Demanding a new deal

Memories of the general strike

Taking on the print barons

Disabled workers

Creating the right balance for work and family life

The real-life hero from Pride

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

Fighting back against sexual harassment

Health and Safety

Health and Safety Act 1974

Global Solidarity

G.H. Stuart-Bunning

The International Labour Organisation

Keeping the family together

Global Solidarity

Hans Gottfurcht

How the TUC helped to keep European unionism alive during WWII

Global Solidarity

The 1889 London dockworkers’ strike

Five steps to success

Dagenham Women’s Strike

How Ford’s striking women drove the Equal Pay Act

Campaigning for recognition

Health and Safety

Making London the safest Olympics ever

Burston School Strike

The longest strike in history

Everyday Heroes

Poet, socialist and trade union leader

Ending discrimination on the buses

The Tolpuddle Martyrs

Chris Braithwaite

Sailor, docker and activist

Playing a blinder for women

A beacon of hope at GCHQ

Oliver Kilbourn

The Pitmen Painters

Founder of the NHS

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

Bringing socialism to Liverpool

Pioneering trade unionist and suffragette

Costing workers their jobs and their families

Kevin Horne and Barbara Jackson

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

Let Robeson Sing

10 things you need to know

Health and Safety

Samuel Plimsoll

The sailors' hero

Thirty years to equality at work

Satnam Singh Ner

Bringing diversity into the workplace

Five ways my union supported my transition

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

“A 200-word essay changed my life”

Winning for care workers on zero-hours

Squeezing our public sector professionals

Building a culture of learning – at every level and background

Many routes to an education

Yorkshire and Humber

Lisa Greenfield

“People always want to learn”

Charlotte Gardner

Leading a network of 50 reps

Angela Rayner MP

A remarkable journey to Westminster

Global Solidarity

From the college canteen to international leadership

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

Alisdair Kairns

Not all glitz and glamour at the movies

We turned something negative into something really positive

“An outstanding trade unionist”

Evelyn Martin MBE

A lifetime of learning

Queueing up to learn

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

Musician's Union

Four reasons why musicians need unions

Wasting no time to build a movement

5 reasons for musicians to join a union

Booking in time to destress

Galvanising a community in times of strife

Knocking on every door

Canon Steven Saxby

Five reasons why faith workers need unions

Pauline Carwood

"30 years ago women didn't drive trains"

Health and Safety

Alan Knight MBE

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

“Actors have always been part of the gig economy”

Firefighter and FBU official

Public Services

Deborah Bell and Karen McArthur

The faces behind library losses

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

Gail Cartwright, Midwife

Squeezing our public sector professionals

Galvanising a community in times of strife

“The classes are a great networking event.”

“A union is about being united and working together”

Millie Apedo-Amah

The vital role of a train guard

A young postie with a passion for fairness

Fighting for change at McDonalds

Why I came out as gay at a school assembly

A no-nonsense approach on the shop floor

Health and Safety

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

Health and Safety

60 seconds at Sellafield

Squeezing our public service professionals

Show the love – hug your school!

Anne Cox, headteacher

Disabled workers

Changing the narrative

People don’t say no enough

Dudley Hackling

‘It all comes down to communication and confidence’

Yorkshire and Humber

Jake O’Malley

Three steps to building a strong union

Supporting women survivors of violence

Health and Safety

60 seconds on a North Sea rig

Fighting for permanent contracts

Barry Downey, Firefighter

Squeezing our public sector professionals

Craig Johnstone

The Churchill Cleaners: five tips to winning a dispute

Health and Safety

Janise Corsfield

“I’ve always been safety conscious”

Changing the conversation about mental health at work

Five things I learnt from being a union member

Royal College of Midwives

Jillian Ireland and Sara Fripp

Singing it loud

Apprenticeships

“An apprenticeship was a no-brainer”

Helping girls plan for life after football

“Journalism was suddenly being equated with espionage”

The home of the British trade union movement

Campaigning for paid holiday for everyone

Albert Mansbridge

Championing education for working people

Cricket ball makers strike

Small but mighty

Fiercely intelligent, influential and inspirational

People’s March for Jobs

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