Explore all stories - TUC 150 Stories

The Trico strike for equal pay

Oliver Kilbourn

The Pitmen Painters

The pioneer behind 30 women’s trade unions

Trade union leader and all-round firebrand

Low Pay Commission

Kevin Horne and Barbara Jackson

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

A beacon of hope at GCHQ

Bristol bus boycott

Bristol’s forgotten civil rights scandal

Disabled workers

Creating the right balance for work and family life

The great Penrhyn quarry strike

Capturing the public imagination

Everyday Heroes

Order of Industrial Heroism

Celebrating working heroes

"We are those lions, Mr Manager.”

The Wapping Dispute

Saving Steel Workers' Pensions

Burston School Strike

The longest strike in history

Match Women’s Strike

Revolutionary Rosie

Mass Strike in Dublin 1913

Everyday Heroes

Poet, socialist and trade union leader

Demanding a minimum wage

Eyewitness to Cable Street

The weavers strike

Success for the first all-woman strike committee

Costing workers their jobs and their families

Health and Safety

Making London the safest Olympics ever

Greater Manchester

Chris Braithwaite

Sailor, docker and activist

The first female president of the TUC

7 things you should know

Memories of the general strike

The real-life hero from Pride

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

The Tolpuddle Martyrs

Health and Safety

Joint Production Committees

Protecting workers

Campaigning for recognition

Playing a blinder for women

Dagenham Women’s Strike

How Ford’s striking women drove the Equal Pay Act

Miner, socialist, pacifist, leader

The Jarrow March

Demanding a new deal

10 things you need to know

Dorothy Ratcliffe and Susan Crosby

Equal pay in Yorkshire school canteens

Trade unions during WWII

Building relationships and boosting morale

Disabled workers

National League of the Blind

"Justice not Charity"

The man who redefined the TUC

Keeping the family together

Global Solidarity

Hans Gottfurcht

How the TUC helped to keep European unionism alive during WWII

84 years of activism

Health and Safety

Samuel Plimsoll

The sailors' hero

Founder of the NHS

Apprenticeships

Championing Young Workers

Health and Safety

Health and Safety Act 1974

Bringing socialism to Liverpool

Global Solidarity

Supporting Polish trade unionists

Global Solidarity

The 1889 London dockworkers’ strike

Five steps to success

The Woolf’s Strike

Organising migrant workers

"A burning sense of what was just"

Ending discrimination on the buses

The founding of the TUC

150 years on and going strong

Mary Bamber and Bessie Braddock

Like mother, like daughter

Let Robeson Sing

Clementina Black

Ricky Tomlinson

“My innocence has been proved time and again”

Pioneering trade unionist and suffragette

Margaret Bondfield

Shop floor rebel

Thirty years to equality at work

Fighting wage slavery

Best foot forward – from redundancy to a shoe business

Fighting back against sexual harassment

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

Global Solidarity

G.H. Stuart-Bunning

The International Labour Organisation

Taking on the print barons

We turned something negative into something really positive

Health and Safety

60 seconds at Sellafield

“Actors have always been part of the gig economy”

Disabled workers

Changing the narrative

Craig Johnstone

The Churchill Cleaners: five tips to winning a dispute

Building a culture of learning – at every level and background

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

Winning for care workers on zero-hours

Health and Safety

Janise Corsfield

“I’ve always been safety conscious”

Five ways my union supported my transition

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

“A 200-word essay changed my life”

Pauline Carwood

"30 years ago women didn't drive trains"

Wasting no time to build a movement

Show the love – hug your school!

Anne Cox, headteacher

Queueing up to learn

Health and Safety

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

Global Solidarity

From the college canteen to international leadership

“An outstanding trade unionist”

Five things I learnt from being a union member

Many routes to an education

Canon Steven Saxby

Five reasons why faith workers need unions

Barry Downey, Firefighter

Squeezing our public sector professionals

Evelyn Martin MBE

A lifetime of learning

Gail Cartwright, Midwife

Squeezing our public sector professionals

Helping girls plan for life after football

Alisdair Kairns

Not all glitz and glamour at the movies

Charlotte Gardner

Leading a network of 50 reps

Health and Safety

60 seconds on a North Sea rig

Knocking on every door

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

People don’t say no enough

Dudley Hackling

‘It all comes down to communication and confidence’

Yorkshire and Humber

Jake O’Malley

Three steps to building a strong union

Squeezing our public sector professionals

“The classes are a great networking event.”

A no-nonsense approach on the shop floor

“A union is about being united and working together”

Fighting for permanent contracts

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

Why I came out as gay at a school assembly

A young postie with a passion for fairness

5 reasons for musicians to join a union

Galvanising a community in times of strife

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

Satnam Singh Ner

Bringing diversity into the workplace

Fighting for change at McDonalds

Musician's Union

Four reasons why musicians need unions

Angela Rayner MP

A remarkable journey to Westminster

Squeezing our public service professionals

Galvanising a community in times of strife

Firefighter and FBU official

Changing the conversation about mental health at work

Apprenticeships

“An apprenticeship was a no-brainer”

Supporting women survivors of violence

Millie Apedo-Amah

The vital role of a train guard

Health and Safety

Alan Knight MBE

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

Royal College of Midwives

Jillian Ireland and Sara Fripp

Singing it loud

People’s March for Jobs

Fiercely intelligent, influential and inspirational

The home of the British trade union movement

“Journalism was suddenly being equated with espionage”

Cricket ball makers strike

Small but mighty

Campaigning for paid holiday for everyone

Albert Mansbridge

Championing education for working people

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