Explore all stories - TUC 150 Stories

Chris Braithwaite

Sailor, docker and activist

7 things you should know

Pioneering trade unionist and suffragette

Apprenticeships

Championing Young Workers

Taking on the print barons

Everyday Heroes

Poet, socialist and trade union leader

Disabled workers

National League of the Blind

"Justice not Charity"

Global Solidarity

The 1889 London dockworkers’ strike

Five steps to success

Keeping the family together

Saving Steel Workers' Pensions

The Trico strike for equal pay

Disabled workers

Creating the right balance for work and family life

Match Women’s Strike

Founder of the NHS

Dagenham Women’s Strike

How Ford’s striking women drove the Equal Pay Act

Health and Safety

Making London the safest Olympics ever

10 things you need to know

Everyday Heroes

Order of Industrial Heroism

Celebrating working heroes

84 years of activism

Health and Safety

Joint Production Committees

Protecting workers

Oliver Kilbourn

The Pitmen Painters

The Tolpuddle Martyrs

Playing a blinder for women

Dorothy Ratcliffe and Susan Crosby

Equal pay in Yorkshire school canteens

The pioneer behind 30 women’s trade unions

Miner, socialist, pacifist, leader

Revolutionary Rosie

Mass Strike in Dublin 1913

Ending discrimination on the buses

The weavers strike

Success for the first all-woman strike committee

Thirty years to equality at work

Health and Safety

Health and Safety Act 1974

Ricky Tomlinson

“My innocence has been proved time and again”

Global Solidarity

Supporting Polish trade unionists

"A burning sense of what was just"

Campaigning for recognition

The first female president of the TUC

Global Solidarity

Hans Gottfurcht

How the TUC helped to keep European unionism alive during WWII

Kevin Horne and Barbara Jackson

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

Eyewitness to Cable Street

Trade union leader and all-round firebrand

The real-life hero from Pride

Burston School Strike

The longest strike in history

Bristol bus boycott

Bristol’s forgotten civil rights scandal

The Woolf’s Strike

Organising migrant workers

Margaret Bondfield

Shop floor rebel

Costing workers their jobs and their families

"We are those lions, Mr Manager.”

The man who redefined the TUC

Demanding a minimum wage

Global Solidarity

G.H. Stuart-Bunning

The International Labour Organisation

Fighting back against sexual harassment

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

Bringing socialism to Liverpool

Clementina Black

Trade unions during WWII

Building relationships and boosting morale

Memories of the general strike

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

Let Robeson Sing

The great Penrhyn quarry strike

Capturing the public imagination

Greater Manchester

Best foot forward – from redundancy to a shoe business

A beacon of hope at GCHQ

The founding of the TUC

150 years on and going strong

The Wapping Dispute

Low Pay Commission

Fighting wage slavery

Mary Bamber and Bessie Braddock

Like mother, like daughter

The Jarrow March

Demanding a new deal

Health and Safety

Samuel Plimsoll

The sailors' hero

Satnam Singh Ner

Bringing diversity into the workplace

Building a culture of learning – at every level and background

Pauline Carwood

"30 years ago women didn't drive trains"

Queueing up to learn

Disabled workers

Changing the narrative

Millie Apedo-Amah

The vital role of a train guard

People don’t say no enough

“A 200-word essay changed my life”

Why I came out as gay at a school assembly

Knocking on every door

We turned something negative into something really positive

Evelyn Martin MBE

A lifetime of learning

Firefighter and FBU official

“A union is about being united and working together”

Many routes to an education

Barry Downey, Firefighter

Squeezing our public sector professionals

Royal College of Midwives

Jillian Ireland and Sara Fripp

Singing it loud

Squeezing our public service professionals

Show the love – hug your school!

Anne Cox, headteacher

Angela Rayner MP

A remarkable journey to Westminster

Canon Steven Saxby

Five reasons why faith workers need unions

Booking in time to destress

Health and Safety

60 seconds on a North Sea rig

Galvanising a community in times of strife

Craig Johnstone

The Churchill Cleaners: five tips to winning a dispute

Health and Safety

Alan Knight MBE

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

Health and Safety

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

Public Services

Deborah Bell and Karen McArthur

The faces behind library losses

Winning for care workers on zero-hours

Musician's Union

Four reasons why musicians need unions

Dudley Hackling

‘It all comes down to communication and confidence’

A no-nonsense approach on the shop floor

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

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

5 reasons for musicians to join a union

Changing the conversation about mental health at work

Helping girls plan for life after football

Charlotte Gardner

Leading a network of 50 reps

Health and Safety

Janise Corsfield

“I’ve always been safety conscious”

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

Health and Safety

60 seconds at Sellafield

Yorkshire and Humber

Lisa Greenfield

“People always want to learn”

Fighting for change at McDonalds

Yorkshire and Humber

Jake O’Malley

Three steps to building a strong union

Global Solidarity

From the college canteen to international leadership

Five ways my union supported my transition

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

Supporting women survivors of violence

A young postie with a passion for fairness

Squeezing our public sector professionals

Apprenticeships

“An apprenticeship was a no-brainer”

Galvanising a community in times of strife

“Actors have always been part of the gig economy”

“The classes are a great networking event.”

Alisdair Kairns

Not all glitz and glamour at the movies

Wasting no time to build a movement

Fighting for permanent contracts

“An outstanding trade unionist”

Five things I learnt from being a union member

Gail Cartwright, Midwife

Squeezing our public sector professionals

People’s March for Jobs

“Journalism was suddenly being equated with espionage”

Fiercely intelligent, influential and inspirational

Albert Mansbridge

Championing education for working people

The home of the British trade union movement

Campaigning for paid holiday for everyone

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