Explore all stories - TUC 150 Stories

Taking on the print barons

Dagenham Women’s Strike

How Ford’s striking women drove the Equal Pay Act

Global Solidarity

The 1889 London dockworkers’ strike

Five steps to success

84 years of activism

A beacon of hope at GCHQ

The Wapping Dispute

Memories of the general strike

Margaret Bondfield

Shop floor rebel

The real-life hero from Pride

Eyewitness to Cable Street

Trade unions during WWII

Building relationships and boosting morale

The Tolpuddle Martyrs

Everyday Heroes

Order of Industrial Heroism

Celebrating working heroes

Apprenticeships

Championing Young Workers

Ending discrimination on the buses

Demanding a minimum wage

Health and Safety

Joint Production Committees

Protecting workers

Thirty years to equality at work

Mary Bamber and Bessie Braddock

Like mother, like daughter

Campaigning for recognition

Pioneering trade unionist and suffragette

Global Solidarity

G.H. Stuart-Bunning

The International Labour Organisation

The Woolf’s Strike

Organising migrant workers

Bristol bus boycott

Bristol’s forgotten civil rights scandal

Ricky Tomlinson

“My innocence has been proved time and again”

Global Solidarity

Hans Gottfurcht

How the TUC helped to keep European unionism alive during WWII

Keeping the family together

Bringing socialism to Liverpool

Best foot forward – from redundancy to a shoe business

The Trico strike for equal pay

Greater Manchester

"A burning sense of what was just"

Fighting wage slavery

The Jarrow March

Demanding a new deal

Burston School Strike

The longest strike in history

The founding of the TUC

150 years on and going strong

"We are those lions, Mr Manager.”

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

10 things you need to know

Costing workers their jobs and their families

Saving Steel Workers' Pensions

The pioneer behind 30 women’s trade unions

Founder of the NHS

Kevin Horne and Barbara Jackson

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

Oliver Kilbourn

The Pitmen Painters

The first female president of the TUC

Global Solidarity

Supporting Polish trade unionists

Disabled workers

National League of the Blind

"Justice not Charity"

The man who redefined the TUC

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

The great Penrhyn quarry strike

Capturing the public imagination

Health and Safety

Samuel Plimsoll

The sailors' hero

Dorothy Ratcliffe and Susan Crosby

Equal pay in Yorkshire school canteens

Everyday Heroes

Poet, socialist and trade union leader

7 things you should know

Miner, socialist, pacifist, leader

Health and Safety

Health and Safety Act 1974

Low Pay Commission

Health and Safety

Making London the safest Olympics ever

Chris Braithwaite

Sailor, docker and activist

The weavers strike

Success for the first all-woman strike committee

Trade union leader and all-round firebrand

Match Women’s Strike

Playing a blinder for women

Revolutionary Rosie

Mass Strike in Dublin 1913

Let Robeson Sing

Clementina Black

Disabled workers

Creating the right balance for work and family life

Fighting back against sexual harassment

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”

Disabled workers

Changing the narrative

Charlotte Gardner

Leading a network of 50 reps

“A union is about being united and working together”

5 reasons for musicians to join a union

A young postie with a passion for fairness

Craig Johnstone

The Churchill Cleaners: five tips to winning a dispute

Pauline Carwood

"30 years ago women didn't drive trains"

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

Barry Downey, Firefighter

Squeezing our public sector professionals

Winning for care workers on zero-hours

Five ways my union supported my transition

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

Knocking on every door

Changing the conversation about mental health at work

We turned something negative into something really positive

Firefighter and FBU official

Musician's Union

Four reasons why musicians need unions

Gail Cartwright, Midwife

Squeezing our public sector professionals

Apprenticeships

“An apprenticeship was a no-brainer”

Millie Apedo-Amah

The vital role of a train guard

“The classes are a great networking event.”

Galvanising a community in times of strife

Fighting for permanent contracts

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

Building a culture of learning – at every level and background

Alisdair Kairns

Not all glitz and glamour at the movies

Helping girls plan for life after football

“Actors have always been part of the gig economy”

Show the love – hug your school!

Anne Cox, headteacher

Dudley Hackling

‘It all comes down to communication and confidence’

Five things I learnt from being a union member

“An outstanding trade unionist”

Yorkshire and Humber

Lisa Greenfield

“People always want to learn”

Squeezing our public service professionals

Squeezing our public sector professionals

Many routes to an education

Supporting women survivors of violence

Royal College of Midwives

Jillian Ireland and Sara Fripp

Singing it loud

Health and Safety

Janise Corsfield

“I’ve always been safety conscious”

Angela Rayner MP

A remarkable journey to Westminster

Why I came out as gay at a school assembly

Yorkshire and Humber

Jake O’Malley

Three steps to building a strong union

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

People don’t say no enough

A no-nonsense approach on the shop floor

Queueing up to learn

Health and Safety

60 seconds at Sellafield

Booking in time to destress

Fighting for change at McDonalds

Evelyn Martin MBE

A lifetime of learning

Satnam Singh Ner

Bringing diversity into the workplace

Wasting no time to build a movement

Galvanising a community in times of strife

“A 200-word essay changed my life”

Global Solidarity

From the college canteen to international leadership

Health and Safety

60 seconds on a North Sea rig

Canon Steven Saxby

Five reasons why faith workers need unions

People’s March for Jobs

Cricket ball makers strike

Small but mighty

Campaigning for paid holiday for everyone

“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

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