Explore all stories - TUC 150 Stories

Match Women’s Strike

The first female president of the TUC

Health and Safety

Joint Production Committees

Protecting workers

The Woolf’s Strike

Organising migrant workers

Thirty years to equality at work

"A burning sense of what was just"

10 things you need to know

Health and Safety

Samuel Plimsoll

The sailors' hero

The real-life hero from Pride

Oliver Kilbourn

The Pitmen Painters

Trade unions during WWII

Building relationships and boosting morale

Costing workers their jobs and their families

Global Solidarity

Supporting Polish trade unionists

Playing a blinder for women

Disabled workers

Creating the right balance for work and family life

Chris Braithwaite

Sailor, docker and activist

Margaret Bondfield

Shop floor rebel

Trade union leader and all-round firebrand

Health and Safety

Health and Safety Act 1974

Kevin Horne and Barbara Jackson

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

The man who redefined the TUC

Everyday Heroes

Poet, socialist and trade union leader

Clementina Black

The pioneer behind 30 women’s trade unions

Pioneering trade unionist and suffragette

The Jarrow March

Demanding a new deal

Memories of the general strike

Ricky Tomlinson

“My innocence has been proved time and again”

Bristol bus boycott

Bristol’s forgotten civil rights scandal

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

The Tolpuddle Martyrs

Apprenticeships

Championing Young Workers

84 years of activism

Global Solidarity

G.H. Stuart-Bunning

The International Labour Organisation

"We are those lions, Mr Manager.”

Saving Steel Workers' Pensions

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

Low Pay Commission

Taking on the print barons

7 things you should know

Fighting back against sexual harassment

Dorothy Ratcliffe and Susan Crosby

Equal pay in Yorkshire school canteens

Health and Safety

Making London the safest Olympics ever

Eyewitness to Cable Street

The weavers strike

Success for the first all-woman strike committee

A beacon of hope at GCHQ

Dagenham Women’s Strike

How Ford’s striking women drove the Equal Pay Act

Everyday Heroes

Order of Industrial Heroism

Celebrating working heroes

Fighting wage slavery

Burston School Strike

The longest strike in history

Keeping the family together

Demanding a minimum wage

Disabled workers

National League of the Blind

"Justice not Charity"

The great Penrhyn quarry strike

Capturing the public imagination

Let Robeson Sing

Bringing socialism to Liverpool

Ending discrimination on the buses

The Wapping Dispute

Greater Manchester

Global Solidarity

The 1889 London dockworkers’ strike

Five steps to success

Global Solidarity

Hans Gottfurcht

How the TUC helped to keep European unionism alive during WWII

Campaigning for recognition

Founder of the NHS

Mary Bamber and Bessie Braddock

Like mother, like daughter

The Trico strike for equal pay

The founding of the TUC

150 years on and going strong

Revolutionary Rosie

Mass Strike in Dublin 1913

Best foot forward – from redundancy to a shoe business

Miner, socialist, pacifist, leader

Barry Downey, Firefighter

Squeezing our public sector professionals

Health and Safety

Alan Knight MBE

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

Disabled workers

Changing the narrative

Five things I learnt from being a union member

Five ways my union supported my transition

Musician's Union

Four reasons why musicians need unions

Pauline Carwood

"30 years ago women didn't drive trains"

Changing the conversation about mental health at work

Yorkshire and Humber

Jake O’Malley

Three steps to building a strong union

“A 200-word essay changed my life”

A no-nonsense approach on the shop floor

“An outstanding trade unionist”

Firefighter and FBU official

Many routes to an education

Helping girls plan for life after football

Fighting for change at McDonalds

Health and Safety

Janise Corsfield

“I’ve always been safety conscious”

Booking in time to destress

Why I came out as gay at a school assembly

People don’t say no enough

Royal College of Midwives

Jillian Ireland and Sara Fripp

Singing it loud

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

Health and Safety

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

Squeezing our public sector professionals

We turned something negative into something really positive

Dudley Hackling

‘It all comes down to communication and confidence’

Craig Johnstone

The Churchill Cleaners: five tips to winning a dispute

5 reasons for musicians to join a union

Building a culture of learning – at every level and background

Health and Safety

60 seconds at Sellafield

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

Supporting women survivors of violence

Squeezing our public service professionals

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

Angela Rayner MP

A remarkable journey to Westminster

Queueing up to learn

“The classes are a great networking event.”

Satnam Singh Ner

Bringing diversity into the workplace

Canon Steven Saxby

Five reasons why faith workers need unions

Galvanising a community in times of strife

Show the love – hug your school!

Anne Cox, headteacher

Gail Cartwright, Midwife

Squeezing our public sector professionals

Evelyn Martin MBE

A lifetime of learning

“Actors have always been part of the gig economy”

Wasting no time to build a movement

“A union is about being united and working together”

Public Services

Deborah Bell and Karen McArthur

The faces behind library losses

Global Solidarity

From the college canteen to international leadership

Charlotte Gardner

Leading a network of 50 reps

Galvanising a community in times of strife

Yorkshire and Humber

Lisa Greenfield

“People always want to learn”

Fighting for permanent contracts

Health and Safety

60 seconds on a North Sea rig

Knocking on every door

Millie Apedo-Amah

The vital role of a train guard

A young postie with a passion for fairness

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

Winning for care workers on zero-hours

Apprenticeships

“An apprenticeship was a no-brainer”

Alisdair Kairns

Not all glitz and glamour at the movies

“Journalism was suddenly being equated with espionage”

People’s March for Jobs

Albert Mansbridge

Championing education for working people

Campaigning for paid holiday for everyone

Cricket ball makers strike

Small but mighty

The home of the British trade union movement

Fiercely intelligent, influential and inspirational

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