Explore all stories - TUC 150 Stories

Kevin Horne and Barbara Jackson

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

Everyday Heroes

Poet, socialist and trade union leader

The Tolpuddle Martyrs

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

Margaret Bondfield

Shop floor rebel

Apprenticeships

Championing Young Workers

The founding of the TUC

150 years on and going strong

The weavers strike

Success for the first all-woman strike committee

10 things you need to know

Everyday Heroes

Order of Industrial Heroism

Celebrating working heroes

Disabled workers

Creating the right balance for work and family life

Health and Safety

Making London the safest Olympics ever

The Trico strike for equal pay

Thirty years to equality at work

Miner, socialist, pacifist, leader

Costing workers their jobs and their families

Trade union leader and all-round firebrand

The pioneer behind 30 women’s trade unions

Revolutionary Rosie

Mass Strike in Dublin 1913

Let Robeson Sing

Dagenham Women’s Strike

How Ford’s striking women drove the Equal Pay Act

Greater Manchester

Oliver Kilbourn

The Pitmen Painters

Health and Safety

Samuel Plimsoll

The sailors' hero

The great Penrhyn quarry strike

Capturing the public imagination

Match Women’s Strike

Global Solidarity

The 1889 London dockworkers’ strike

Five steps to success

Founder of the NHS

Dorothy Ratcliffe and Susan Crosby

Equal pay in Yorkshire school canteens

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

Demanding a minimum wage

Health and Safety

Joint Production Committees

Protecting workers

Fighting back against sexual harassment

The first female president of the TUC

Pioneering trade unionist and suffragette

The Wapping Dispute

"We are those lions, Mr Manager.”

Saving Steel Workers' Pensions

Bristol bus boycott

Bristol’s forgotten civil rights scandal

Ending discrimination on the buses

84 years of activism

Global Solidarity

G.H. Stuart-Bunning

The International Labour Organisation

The man who redefined the TUC

Burston School Strike

The longest strike in history

"A burning sense of what was just"

7 things you should know

Eyewitness to Cable Street

Campaigning for recognition

Ricky Tomlinson

“My innocence has been proved time and again”

Trade unions during WWII

Building relationships and boosting morale

The Jarrow March

Demanding a new deal

Mary Bamber and Bessie Braddock

Like mother, like daughter

The real-life hero from Pride

The Woolf’s Strike

Organising migrant workers

Global Solidarity

Supporting Polish trade unionists

A beacon of hope at GCHQ

Playing a blinder for women

Chris Braithwaite

Sailor, docker and activist

Global Solidarity

Hans Gottfurcht

How the TUC helped to keep European unionism alive during WWII

Taking on the print barons

Disabled workers

National League of the Blind

"Justice not Charity"

Bringing socialism to Liverpool

Low Pay Commission

Memories of the general strike

Fighting wage slavery

Keeping the family together

Clementina Black

Health and Safety

Health and Safety Act 1974

Best foot forward – from redundancy to a shoe business

Gail Cartwright, Midwife

Squeezing our public sector professionals

Health and Safety

Janise Corsfield

“I’ve always been safety conscious”

Fighting for permanent contracts

Many routes to an education

People don’t say no enough

Queueing up to learn

“The classes are a great networking event.”

Charlotte Gardner

Leading a network of 50 reps

Show the love – hug your school!

Anne Cox, headteacher

Evelyn Martin MBE

A lifetime of learning

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

Royal College of Midwives

Jillian Ireland and Sara Fripp

Singing it loud

5 reasons for musicians to join a union

“An outstanding trade unionist”

Firefighter and FBU official

Changing the conversation about mental health at work

Musician's Union

Four reasons why musicians need unions

Alisdair Kairns

Not all glitz and glamour at the movies

Apprenticeships

“An apprenticeship was a no-brainer”

A no-nonsense approach on the shop floor

Galvanising a community in times of strife

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

Building a culture of learning – at every level and background

Winning for care workers on zero-hours

Health and Safety

60 seconds at Sellafield

Satnam Singh Ner

Bringing diversity into the workplace

Health and Safety

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

Pauline Carwood

"30 years ago women didn't drive trains"

Dudley Hackling

‘It all comes down to communication and confidence’

Squeezing our public service professionals

“A 200-word essay changed my life”

“A union is about being united and working together”

Yorkshire and Humber

Jake O’Malley

Three steps to building a strong union

“Actors have always been part of the gig economy”

Craig Johnstone

The Churchill Cleaners: five tips to winning a dispute

Why I came out as gay at a school assembly

Health and Safety

60 seconds on a North Sea rig

Fighting for change at McDonalds

Angela Rayner MP

A remarkable journey to Westminster

Wasting no time to build a movement

Barry Downey, Firefighter

Squeezing our public sector professionals

We turned something negative into something really positive

Galvanising a community in times of strife

Supporting women survivors of violence

Health and Safety

Alan Knight MBE

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

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

Squeezing our public sector professionals

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

Five ways my union supported my transition

Knocking on every door

Global Solidarity

From the college canteen to international leadership

Millie Apedo-Amah

The vital role of a train guard

Five things I learnt from being a union member

Canon Steven Saxby

Five reasons why faith workers need unions

Helping girls plan for life after football

A young postie with a passion for fairness

Disabled workers

Changing the narrative

Yorkshire and Humber

Lisa Greenfield

“People always want to learn”

Booking in time to destress

Public Services

Deborah Bell and Karen McArthur

The faces behind library losses

“Journalism was suddenly being equated with espionage”

The home of the British trade union movement

Albert Mansbridge

Championing education for working people

Campaigning for paid holiday for everyone

People’s March for Jobs

Fiercely intelligent, influential and inspirational

Cricket ball makers strike

Small but mighty

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