Explore all stories - TUC 150 Stories

84 years of activism

Trade unions during WWII

Building relationships and boosting morale

10 things you need to know

Mary Bamber and Bessie Braddock

Like mother, like daughter

Demanding a minimum wage

Keeping the family together

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

Costing workers their jobs and their families

Bringing socialism to Liverpool

Ricky Tomlinson

“My innocence has been proved time and again”

Burston School Strike

The longest strike in history

Pioneering trade unionist and suffragette

Clementina Black

Match Women’s Strike

Everyday Heroes

Order of Industrial Heroism

Celebrating working heroes

Global Solidarity

The 1889 London dockworkers’ strike

Five steps to success

Low Pay Commission

Best foot forward – from redundancy to a shoe business

Trade union leader and all-round firebrand

Greater Manchester

Campaigning for recognition

Global Solidarity

Supporting Polish trade unionists

The Woolf’s Strike

Organising migrant workers

The Tolpuddle Martyrs

Margaret Bondfield

Shop floor rebel

The weavers strike

Success for the first all-woman strike committee

Everyday Heroes

Poet, socialist and trade union leader

Memories of the general strike

Disabled workers

National League of the Blind

"Justice not Charity"

Eyewitness to Cable Street

Saving Steel Workers' Pensions

Health and Safety

Making London the safest Olympics ever

Oliver Kilbourn

The Pitmen Painters

"We are those lions, Mr Manager.”

Miner, socialist, pacifist, leader

Dorothy Ratcliffe and Susan Crosby

Equal pay in Yorkshire school canteens

Apprenticeships

Championing Young Workers

The first female president of the TUC

Dagenham Women’s Strike

How Ford’s striking women drove the Equal Pay Act

Playing a blinder for women

The man who redefined the TUC

Fighting back against sexual harassment

"A burning sense of what was just"

Disabled workers

Creating the right balance for work and family life

Global Solidarity

Hans Gottfurcht

How the TUC helped to keep European unionism alive during WWII

Ending discrimination on the buses

The Wapping Dispute

The founding of the TUC

150 years on and going strong

The Trico strike for equal pay

Thirty years to equality at work

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

The great Penrhyn quarry strike

Capturing the public imagination

Founder of the NHS

A beacon of hope at GCHQ

Let Robeson Sing

Health and Safety

Health and Safety Act 1974

The real-life hero from Pride

Fighting wage slavery

Revolutionary Rosie

Mass Strike in Dublin 1913

Taking on the print barons

Kevin Horne and Barbara Jackson

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

The pioneer behind 30 women’s trade unions

Health and Safety

Samuel Plimsoll

The sailors' hero

Health and Safety

Joint Production Committees

Protecting workers

The Jarrow March

Demanding a new deal

7 things you should know

Global Solidarity

G.H. Stuart-Bunning

The International Labour Organisation

Bristol bus boycott

Bristol’s forgotten civil rights scandal

Chris Braithwaite

Sailor, docker and activist

Satnam Singh Ner

Bringing diversity into the workplace

Knocking on every door

Angela Rayner MP

A remarkable journey to Westminster

Public Services

Deborah Bell and Karen McArthur

The faces behind library losses

Wasting no time to build a movement

Changing the conversation about mental health at work

“A union is about being united and working together”

Craig Johnstone

The Churchill Cleaners: five tips to winning a dispute

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

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

Yorkshire and Humber

Lisa Greenfield

“People always want to learn”

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

Five things I learnt from being a union member

Dudley Hackling

‘It all comes down to communication and confidence’

Booking in time to destress

Show the love – hug your school!

Anne Cox, headteacher

Canon Steven Saxby

Five reasons why faith workers need unions

Apprenticeships

“An apprenticeship was a no-brainer”

“Actors have always been part of the gig economy”

“An outstanding trade unionist”

Gail Cartwright, Midwife

Squeezing our public sector professionals

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

Health and Safety

Alan Knight MBE

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

Squeezing our public service professionals

Health and Safety

60 seconds at Sellafield

Musician's Union

Four reasons why musicians need unions

Disabled workers

Changing the narrative

Supporting women survivors of violence

Global Solidarity

From the college canteen to international leadership

Firefighter and FBU official

“The classes are a great networking event.”

Charlotte Gardner

Leading a network of 50 reps

Health and Safety

60 seconds on a North Sea rig

Helping girls plan for life after football

Winning for care workers on zero-hours

Millie Apedo-Amah

The vital role of a train guard

Squeezing our public sector professionals

Royal College of Midwives

Jillian Ireland and Sara Fripp

Singing it loud

A young postie with a passion for fairness

Alisdair Kairns

Not all glitz and glamour at the movies

Fighting for permanent contracts

Barry Downey, Firefighter

Squeezing our public sector professionals

People don’t say no enough

Health and Safety

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

“A 200-word essay changed my life”

5 reasons for musicians to join a union

Five ways my union supported my transition

Health and Safety

Janise Corsfield

“I’ve always been safety conscious”

Galvanising a community in times of strife

Yorkshire and Humber

Jake O’Malley

Three steps to building a strong union

Why I came out as gay at a school assembly

Queueing up to learn

A no-nonsense approach on the shop floor

Fighting for change at McDonalds

We turned something negative into something really positive

Pauline Carwood

"30 years ago women didn't drive trains"

Many routes to an education

Evelyn Martin MBE

A lifetime of learning

Galvanising a community in times of strife

Building a culture of learning – at every level and background

Fiercely intelligent, influential and inspirational

Albert Mansbridge

Championing education for working people

The home of the British trade union movement

Cricket ball makers strike

Small but mighty

People’s March for Jobs

Campaigning for paid holiday for everyone

“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