Explore all stories - TUC 150 Stories

"We are those lions, Mr Manager.”

Dorothy Ratcliffe and Susan Crosby

Equal pay in Yorkshire school canteens

Trade unions during WWII

Building relationships and boosting morale

Revolutionary Rosie

Mass Strike in Dublin 1913

Bristol bus boycott

Bristol’s forgotten civil rights scandal

Keeping the family together

Taking on the print barons

7 things you should know

The Tolpuddle Martyrs

Greater Manchester

Playing a blinder for women

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

Eyewitness to Cable Street

84 years of activism

Health and Safety

Joint Production Committees

Protecting workers

Clementina Black

Founder of the NHS

Fighting wage slavery

Apprenticeships

Championing Young Workers

The Wapping Dispute

Oliver Kilbourn

The Pitmen Painters

Trade union leader and all-round firebrand

Global Solidarity

G.H. Stuart-Bunning

The International Labour Organisation

Match Women’s Strike

Dagenham Women’s Strike

How Ford’s striking women drove the Equal Pay Act

Memories of the general strike

Burston School Strike

The longest strike in history

Let Robeson Sing

Health and Safety

Health and Safety Act 1974

Mary Bamber and Bessie Braddock

Like mother, like daughter

The Jarrow March

Demanding a new deal

The man who redefined the TUC

The weavers strike

Success for the first all-woman strike committee

Low Pay Commission

A beacon of hope at GCHQ

Ricky Tomlinson

“My innocence has been proved time and again”

Health and Safety

Samuel Plimsoll

The sailors' hero

Ending discrimination on the buses

Everyday Heroes

Order of Industrial Heroism

Celebrating working heroes

10 things you need to know

Campaigning for recognition

The first female president of the TUC

Global Solidarity

Supporting Polish trade unionists

Global Solidarity

Hans Gottfurcht

How the TUC helped to keep European unionism alive during WWII

The great Penrhyn quarry strike

Capturing the public imagination

Saving Steel Workers' Pensions

Best foot forward – from redundancy to a shoe business

Miner, socialist, pacifist, leader

Thirty years to equality at work

The Woolf’s Strike

Organising migrant workers

Global Solidarity

The 1889 London dockworkers’ strike

Five steps to success

Health and Safety

Making London the safest Olympics ever

Disabled workers

National League of the Blind

"Justice not Charity"

The pioneer behind 30 women’s trade unions

The Trico strike for equal pay

Pioneering trade unionist and suffragette

Bringing socialism to Liverpool

The real-life hero from Pride

The founding of the TUC

150 years on and going strong

Chris Braithwaite

Sailor, docker and activist

Demanding a minimum wage

Disabled workers

Creating the right balance for work and family life

Fighting back against sexual harassment

Everyday Heroes

Poet, socialist and trade union leader

Costing workers their jobs and their families

"A burning sense of what was just"

Kevin Horne and Barbara Jackson

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

Margaret Bondfield

Shop floor rebel

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

Craig Johnstone

The Churchill Cleaners: five tips to winning a dispute

Dudley Hackling

‘It all comes down to communication and confidence’

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

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

Changing the conversation about mental health at work

Health and Safety

60 seconds at Sellafield

Pauline Carwood

"30 years ago women didn't drive trains"

Yorkshire and Humber

Jake O’Malley

Three steps to building a strong union

Five things I learnt from being a union member

“The classes are a great networking event.”

Public Services

Deborah Bell and Karen McArthur

The faces behind library losses

Millie Apedo-Amah

The vital role of a train guard

A no-nonsense approach on the shop floor

“A union is about being united and working together”

Royal College of Midwives

Jillian Ireland and Sara Fripp

Singing it loud

Why I came out as gay at a school assembly

Five ways my union supported my transition

Knocking on every door

Many routes to an education

Charlotte Gardner

Leading a network of 50 reps

Disabled workers

Changing the narrative

People don’t say no enough

Barry Downey, Firefighter

Squeezing our public sector professionals

A young postie with a passion for fairness

Queueing up to learn

We turned something negative into something really positive

Galvanising a community in times of strife

Show the love – hug your school!

Anne Cox, headteacher

Health and Safety

Alan Knight MBE

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

Alisdair Kairns

Not all glitz and glamour at the movies

Health and Safety

60 seconds on a North Sea rig

Fighting for change at McDonalds

Yorkshire and Humber

Lisa Greenfield

“People always want to learn”

“Actors have always been part of the gig economy”

Squeezing our public sector professionals

“A 200-word essay changed my life”

Helping girls plan for life after football

Evelyn Martin MBE

A lifetime of learning

Health and Safety

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

Canon Steven Saxby

Five reasons why faith workers need unions

Fighting for permanent contracts

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

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

“An outstanding trade unionist”

5 reasons for musicians to join a union

Wasting no time to build a movement

Winning for care workers on zero-hours

Firefighter and FBU official

Gail Cartwright, Midwife

Squeezing our public sector professionals

Global Solidarity

From the college canteen to international leadership

Supporting women survivors of violence

Health and Safety

Janise Corsfield

“I’ve always been safety conscious”

Satnam Singh Ner

Bringing diversity into the workplace

Squeezing our public service professionals

Booking in time to destress

Musician's Union

Four reasons why musicians need unions

Galvanising a community in times of strife

Building a culture of learning – at every level and background

Angela Rayner MP

A remarkable journey to Westminster

Apprenticeships

“An apprenticeship was a no-brainer”

The home of the British trade union movement

Cricket ball makers strike

Small but mighty

“Journalism was suddenly being equated with espionage”

Campaigning for paid holiday for everyone

Fiercely intelligent, influential and inspirational

Albert Mansbridge

Championing education for working people

People’s March for Jobs

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