Explore all stories - TUC 150 Stories

Campaigning for recognition

Health and Safety

Joint Production Committees

Protecting workers

Low Pay Commission

Miner, socialist, pacifist, leader

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

Trade union leader and all-round firebrand

Disabled workers

National League of the Blind

"Justice not Charity"

The first female president of the TUC

Fighting back against sexual harassment

The pioneer behind 30 women’s trade unions

Kevin Horne and Barbara Jackson

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

Demanding a minimum wage

Revolutionary Rosie

Mass Strike in Dublin 1913

Global Solidarity

The 1889 London dockworkers’ strike

Five steps to success

Oliver Kilbourn

The Pitmen Painters

Dorothy Ratcliffe and Susan Crosby

Equal pay in Yorkshire school canteens

Health and Safety

Samuel Plimsoll

The sailors' hero

Bringing socialism to Liverpool

Bristol bus boycott

Bristol’s forgotten civil rights scandal

Founder of the NHS

Memories of the general strike

Dagenham Women’s Strike

How Ford’s striking women drove the Equal Pay Act

Match Women’s Strike

"A burning sense of what was just"

The man who redefined the TUC

The weavers strike

Success for the first all-woman strike committee

Let Robeson Sing

Trade unions during WWII

Building relationships and boosting morale

The great Penrhyn quarry strike

Capturing the public imagination

Everyday Heroes

Poet, socialist and trade union leader

The founding of the TUC

150 years on and going strong

Health and Safety

Making London the safest Olympics ever

Global Solidarity

Hans Gottfurcht

How the TUC helped to keep European unionism alive during WWII

The Wapping Dispute

Global Solidarity

Supporting Polish trade unionists

Chris Braithwaite

Sailor, docker and activist

7 things you should know

Everyday Heroes

Order of Industrial Heroism

Celebrating working heroes

Greater Manchester

Disabled workers

Creating the right balance for work and family life

Taking on the print barons

The Trico strike for equal pay

Thirty years to equality at work

Global Solidarity

G.H. Stuart-Bunning

The International Labour Organisation

Clementina Black

Saving Steel Workers' Pensions

Keeping the family together

Burston School Strike

The longest strike in history

Margaret Bondfield

Shop floor rebel

Pioneering trade unionist and suffragette

Playing a blinder for women

Best foot forward – from redundancy to a shoe business

Eyewitness to Cable Street

Health and Safety

Health and Safety Act 1974

The Tolpuddle Martyrs

The real-life hero from Pride

Apprenticeships

Championing Young Workers

A beacon of hope at GCHQ

84 years of activism

The Woolf’s Strike

Organising migrant workers

"We are those lions, Mr Manager.”

The Jarrow March

Demanding a new deal

Ending discrimination on the buses

Ricky Tomlinson

“My innocence has been proved time and again”

Fighting wage slavery

Costing workers their jobs and their families

Mary Bamber and Bessie Braddock

Like mother, like daughter

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

10 things you need to know

Public Services

Deborah Bell and Karen McArthur

The faces behind library losses

Health and Safety

Janise Corsfield

“I’ve always been safety conscious”

Apprenticeships

“An apprenticeship was a no-brainer”

A no-nonsense approach on the shop floor

Many routes to an education

Squeezing our public service professionals

Millie Apedo-Amah

The vital role of a train guard

Dudley Hackling

‘It all comes down to communication and confidence’

A young postie with a passion for fairness

Angela Rayner MP

A remarkable journey to Westminster

Why I came out as gay at a school assembly

“Actors have always been part of the gig economy”

Royal College of Midwives

Jillian Ireland and Sara Fripp

Singing it loud

Health and Safety

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

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

Fighting for change at McDonalds

Yorkshire and Humber

Jake O’Malley

Three steps to building a strong union

Canon Steven Saxby

Five reasons why faith workers need unions

Wasting no time to build a movement

Yorkshire and Humber

Lisa Greenfield

“People always want to learn”

5 reasons for musicians to join a union

Disabled workers

Changing the narrative

Five ways my union supported my transition

Supporting women survivors of violence

Firefighter and FBU official

Squeezing our public sector professionals

Pauline Carwood

"30 years ago women didn't drive trains"

Fighting for permanent contracts

Health and Safety

60 seconds on a North Sea rig

Evelyn Martin MBE

A lifetime of learning

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

Winning for care workers on zero-hours

Health and Safety

Alan Knight MBE

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

Queueing up to learn

Changing the conversation about mental health at work

Global Solidarity

From the college canteen to international leadership

Charlotte Gardner

Leading a network of 50 reps

“An outstanding trade unionist”

Craig Johnstone

The Churchill Cleaners: five tips to winning a dispute

Galvanising a community in times of strife

“A 200-word essay changed my life”

Health and Safety

60 seconds at Sellafield

Show the love – hug your school!

Anne Cox, headteacher

Barry Downey, Firefighter

Squeezing our public sector professionals

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

Satnam Singh Ner

Bringing diversity into the workplace

“A union is about being united and working together”

Booking in time to destress

“The classes are a great networking event.”

Building a culture of learning – at every level and background

Alisdair Kairns

Not all glitz and glamour at the movies

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

Gail Cartwright, Midwife

Squeezing our public sector professionals

People don’t say no enough

Musician's Union

Four reasons why musicians need unions

Knocking on every door

Helping girls plan for life after football

We turned something negative into something really positive

Galvanising a community in times of strife

Five things I learnt from being a union member

Cricket ball makers strike

Small but mighty

Campaigning for paid holiday for everyone

Fiercely intelligent, influential and inspirational

People’s March for Jobs

Albert Mansbridge

Championing education for working people

The home of the British trade union movement

“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