Explore all stories - TUC 150 Stories

Health and Safety

Samuel Plimsoll

The sailors' hero

Costing workers their jobs and their families

Bristol bus boycott

Bristol’s forgotten civil rights scandal

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

Match Women’s Strike

Ending discrimination on the buses

The Jarrow March

Demanding a new deal

Revolutionary Rosie

Mass Strike in Dublin 1913

Low Pay Commission

The real-life hero from Pride

The weavers strike

Success for the first all-woman strike committee

"A burning sense of what was just"

Disabled workers

Creating the right balance for work and family life

A beacon of hope at GCHQ

Everyday Heroes

Poet, socialist and trade union leader

Demanding a minimum wage

Best foot forward – from redundancy to a shoe business

Campaigning for recognition

Miner, socialist, pacifist, leader

Saving Steel Workers' Pensions

7 things you should know

Trade union leader and all-round firebrand

Health and Safety

Joint Production Committees

Protecting workers

Keeping the family together

Dagenham Women’s Strike

How Ford’s striking women drove the Equal Pay Act

Margaret Bondfield

Shop floor rebel

The Tolpuddle Martyrs

10 things you need to know

The man who redefined the TUC

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

Fighting back against sexual harassment

The first female president of the TUC

Everyday Heroes

Order of Industrial Heroism

Celebrating working heroes

Kevin Horne and Barbara Jackson

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

Pioneering trade unionist and suffragette

The founding of the TUC

150 years on and going strong

Oliver Kilbourn

The Pitmen Painters

The Wapping Dispute

Let Robeson Sing

Mary Bamber and Bessie Braddock

Like mother, like daughter

84 years of activism

Global Solidarity

G.H. Stuart-Bunning

The International Labour Organisation

Apprenticeships

Championing Young Workers

Fighting wage slavery

Dorothy Ratcliffe and Susan Crosby

Equal pay in Yorkshire school canteens

Bringing socialism to Liverpool

Greater Manchester

Ricky Tomlinson

“My innocence has been proved time and again”

Health and Safety

Health and Safety Act 1974

Burston School Strike

The longest strike in history

Trade unions during WWII

Building relationships and boosting morale

Global Solidarity

The 1889 London dockworkers’ strike

Five steps to success

Eyewitness to Cable Street

The pioneer behind 30 women’s trade unions

Clementina Black

Global Solidarity

Hans Gottfurcht

How the TUC helped to keep European unionism alive during WWII

Disabled workers

National League of the Blind

"Justice not Charity"

Playing a blinder for women

Thirty years to equality at work

The great Penrhyn quarry strike

Capturing the public imagination

The Trico strike for equal pay

Memories of the general strike

Global Solidarity

Supporting Polish trade unionists

Chris Braithwaite

Sailor, docker and activist

Health and Safety

Making London the safest Olympics ever

Taking on the print barons

The Woolf’s Strike

Organising migrant workers

Founder of the NHS

"We are those lions, Mr Manager.”

Wasting no time to build a movement

“The classes are a great networking event.”

Fighting for permanent contracts

Health and Safety

Janise Corsfield

“I’ve always been safety conscious”

Musician's Union

Four reasons why musicians need unions

Health and Safety

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

Helping girls plan for life after football

Building a culture of learning – at every level and background

Millie Apedo-Amah

The vital role of a train guard

Gail Cartwright, Midwife

Squeezing our public sector professionals

Health and Safety

60 seconds at Sellafield

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

Canon Steven Saxby

Five reasons why faith workers need unions

Pauline Carwood

"30 years ago women didn't drive trains"

Health and Safety

60 seconds on a North Sea rig

Firefighter and FBU official

Why I came out as gay at a school assembly

Disabled workers

Changing the narrative

Royal College of Midwives

Jillian Ireland and Sara Fripp

Singing it loud

A young postie with a passion for fairness

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

Supporting women survivors of violence

Charlotte Gardner

Leading a network of 50 reps

Apprenticeships

“An apprenticeship was a no-brainer”

We turned something negative into something really positive

Alisdair Kairns

Not all glitz and glamour at the movies

Galvanising a community in times of strife

Squeezing our public service professionals

Angela Rayner MP

A remarkable journey to Westminster

Evelyn Martin MBE

A lifetime of learning

Dudley Hackling

‘It all comes down to communication and confidence’

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

Health and Safety

Alan Knight MBE

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

“A union is about being united and working together”

Public Services

Deborah Bell and Karen McArthur

The faces behind library losses

Knocking on every door

Winning for care workers on zero-hours

Squeezing our public sector professionals

“A 200-word essay changed my life”

“Actors have always been part of the gig economy”

Five things I learnt from being a union member

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

A no-nonsense approach on the shop floor

Changing the conversation about mental health at work

Queueing up to learn

People don’t say no enough

Galvanising a community in times of strife

Many routes to an education

Show the love – hug your school!

Anne Cox, headteacher

Five ways my union supported my transition

Yorkshire and Humber

Jake O’Malley

Three steps to building a strong union

Craig Johnstone

The Churchill Cleaners: five tips to winning a dispute

Booking in time to destress

Barry Downey, Firefighter

Squeezing our public sector professionals

5 reasons for musicians to join a union

“An outstanding trade unionist”

Global Solidarity

From the college canteen to international leadership

Satnam Singh Ner

Bringing diversity into the workplace

Fighting for change at McDonalds

Yorkshire and Humber

Lisa Greenfield

“People always want to learn”

Fiercely intelligent, influential and inspirational

The home of the British trade union movement

Albert Mansbridge

Championing education for working people

People’s March for Jobs

Cricket ball makers strike

Small but mighty

Campaigning for paid holiday for everyone

“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