Explore all stories - TUC 150 Stories

Mary Bamber and Bessie Braddock

Like mother, like daughter

Eyewitness to Cable Street

Campaigning for recognition

Health and Safety

Samuel Plimsoll

The sailors' hero

The Trico strike for equal pay

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

Margaret Bondfield

Shop floor rebel

The pioneer behind 30 women’s trade unions

Match Women’s Strike

Thirty years to equality at work

Disabled workers

National League of the Blind

"Justice not Charity"

"We are those lions, Mr Manager.”

The great Penrhyn quarry strike

Capturing the public imagination

84 years of activism

Trade union leader and all-round firebrand

Everyday Heroes

Poet, socialist and trade union leader

Bringing socialism to Liverpool

Taking on the print barons

Trade unions during WWII

Building relationships and boosting morale

Low Pay Commission

"A burning sense of what was just"

Let Robeson Sing

The first female president of the TUC

Health and Safety

Making London the safest Olympics ever

Disabled workers

Creating the right balance for work and family life

Ending discrimination on the buses

The Jarrow March

Demanding a new deal

The man who redefined the TUC

The real-life hero from Pride

Demanding a minimum wage

Global Solidarity

The 1889 London dockworkers’ strike

Five steps to success

Apprenticeships

Championing Young Workers

Dagenham Women’s Strike

How Ford’s striking women drove the Equal Pay Act

Everyday Heroes

Order of Industrial Heroism

Celebrating working heroes

The Tolpuddle Martyrs

Oliver Kilbourn

The Pitmen Painters

10 things you need to know

The weavers strike

Success for the first all-woman strike committee

Dorothy Ratcliffe and Susan Crosby

Equal pay in Yorkshire school canteens

The Woolf’s Strike

Organising migrant workers

Saving Steel Workers' Pensions

7 things you should know

Fighting back against sexual harassment

Global Solidarity

Hans Gottfurcht

How the TUC helped to keep European unionism alive during WWII

Pioneering trade unionist and suffragette

Chris Braithwaite

Sailor, docker and activist

Miner, socialist, pacifist, leader

Best foot forward – from redundancy to a shoe business

Clementina Black

Health and Safety

Joint Production Committees

Protecting workers

Revolutionary Rosie

Mass Strike in Dublin 1913

Costing workers their jobs and their families

Ricky Tomlinson

“My innocence has been proved time and again”

Bristol bus boycott

Bristol’s forgotten civil rights scandal

Keeping the family together

Greater Manchester

Global Solidarity

G.H. Stuart-Bunning

The International Labour Organisation

A beacon of hope at GCHQ

The founding of the TUC

150 years on and going strong

The Wapping Dispute

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

Fighting wage slavery

Burston School Strike

The longest strike in history

Kevin Horne and Barbara Jackson

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

Health and Safety

Health and Safety Act 1974

Global Solidarity

Supporting Polish trade unionists

Memories of the general strike

Playing a blinder for women

Founder of the NHS

Global Solidarity

From the college canteen to international leadership

Supporting women survivors of violence

Why I came out as gay at a school assembly

Musician's Union

Four reasons why musicians need unions

Royal College of Midwives

Jillian Ireland and Sara Fripp

Singing it loud

Five things I learnt from being a union member

Canon Steven Saxby

Five reasons why faith workers need unions

People don’t say no enough

Disabled workers

Changing the narrative

Dudley Hackling

‘It all comes down to communication and confidence’

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

Health and Safety

Janise Corsfield

“I’ve always been safety conscious”

Satnam Singh Ner

Bringing diversity into the workplace

A no-nonsense approach on the shop floor

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

Galvanising a community in times of strife

Millie Apedo-Amah

The vital role of a train guard

Show the love – hug your school!

Anne Cox, headteacher

Alisdair Kairns

Not all glitz and glamour at the movies

Queueing up to learn

A young postie with a passion for fairness

Wasting no time to build a movement

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

Changing the conversation about mental health at work

Health and Safety

Alan Knight MBE

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

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

Squeezing our public sector professionals

Squeezing our public service professionals

“A union is about being united and working together”

Galvanising a community in times of strife

Many routes to an education

Helping girls plan for life after football

Barry Downey, Firefighter

Squeezing our public sector professionals

5 reasons for musicians to join a union

Fighting for change at McDonalds

“The classes are a great networking event.”

Building a culture of learning – at every level and background

Health and Safety

60 seconds at Sellafield

Pauline Carwood

"30 years ago women didn't drive trains"

Angela Rayner MP

A remarkable journey to Westminster

Gail Cartwright, Midwife

Squeezing our public sector professionals

Booking in time to destress

Yorkshire and Humber

Lisa Greenfield

“People always want to learn”

Craig Johnstone

The Churchill Cleaners: five tips to winning a dispute

Health and Safety

60 seconds on a North Sea rig

We turned something negative into something really positive

Knocking on every door

Evelyn Martin MBE

A lifetime of learning

Fighting for permanent contracts

Charlotte Gardner

Leading a network of 50 reps

Firefighter and FBU official

Apprenticeships

“An apprenticeship was a no-brainer”

Winning for care workers on zero-hours

“Actors have always been part of the gig economy”

“A 200-word essay changed my life”

“An outstanding trade unionist”

Public Services

Deborah Bell and Karen McArthur

The faces behind library losses

Yorkshire and Humber

Jake O’Malley

Three steps to building a strong union

Five ways my union supported my transition

Health and Safety

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

The home of the British trade union movement

Fiercely intelligent, influential and inspirational

Albert Mansbridge

Championing education for working people

People’s March for Jobs

Campaigning for paid holiday for everyone

Cricket ball makers strike

Small but mighty

“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