Explore all stories - TUC 150 Stories

Global Solidarity

The 1889 London dockworkers’ strike

Five steps to success

Health and Safety

Samuel Plimsoll

The sailors' hero

84 years of activism

Fighting back against sexual harassment

Playing a blinder for women

Margaret Bondfield

Shop floor rebel

The Woolf’s Strike

Organising migrant workers

7 things you should know

Everyday Heroes

Order of Industrial Heroism

Celebrating working heroes

Saving Steel Workers' Pensions

Best foot forward – from redundancy to a shoe business

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

Disabled workers

Creating the right balance for work and family life

"A burning sense of what was just"

Dagenham Women’s Strike

How Ford’s striking women drove the Equal Pay Act

A beacon of hope at GCHQ

Mary Bamber and Bessie Braddock

Like mother, like daughter

The founding of the TUC

150 years on and going strong

The Tolpuddle Martyrs

Bringing socialism to Liverpool

The Wapping Dispute

Demanding a minimum wage

Everyday Heroes

Poet, socialist and trade union leader

Revolutionary Rosie

Mass Strike in Dublin 1913

The Trico strike for equal pay

Kevin Horne and Barbara Jackson

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

Match Women’s Strike

Apprenticeships

Championing Young Workers

Ending discrimination on the buses

Low Pay Commission

Burston School Strike

The longest strike in history

10 things you need to know

Global Solidarity

Hans Gottfurcht

How the TUC helped to keep European unionism alive during WWII

Memories of the general strike

Trade union leader and all-round firebrand

The Jarrow March

Demanding a new deal

Global Solidarity

Supporting Polish trade unionists

Clementina Black

Pioneering trade unionist and suffragette

Campaigning for recognition

The pioneer behind 30 women’s trade unions

Trade unions during WWII

Building relationships and boosting morale

Keeping the family together

Health and Safety

Joint Production Committees

Protecting workers

Taking on the print barons

Costing workers their jobs and their families

Ricky Tomlinson

“My innocence has been proved time and again”

The real-life hero from Pride

The first female president of the TUC

Let Robeson Sing

Chris Braithwaite

Sailor, docker and activist

Dorothy Ratcliffe and Susan Crosby

Equal pay in Yorkshire school canteens

Miner, socialist, pacifist, leader

"We are those lions, Mr Manager.”

Thirty years to equality at work

Health and Safety

Making London the safest Olympics ever

The man who redefined the TUC

Founder of the NHS

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

The great Penrhyn quarry strike

Capturing the public imagination

The weavers strike

Success for the first all-woman strike committee

Greater Manchester

Oliver Kilbourn

The Pitmen Painters

Bristol bus boycott

Bristol’s forgotten civil rights scandal

Eyewitness to Cable Street

Disabled workers

National League of the Blind

"Justice not Charity"

Fighting wage slavery

Global Solidarity

G.H. Stuart-Bunning

The International Labour Organisation

Health and Safety

Health and Safety Act 1974

Yorkshire and Humber

Lisa Greenfield

“People always want to learn”

5 reasons for musicians to join a union

Charlotte Gardner

Leading a network of 50 reps

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

Squeezing our public service professionals

Building a culture of learning – at every level and background

Why I came out as gay at a school assembly

Health and Safety

Janise Corsfield

“I’ve always been safety conscious”

Squeezing our public sector professionals

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

Five ways my union supported my transition

Royal College of Midwives

Jillian Ireland and Sara Fripp

Singing it loud

Health and Safety

Alan Knight MBE

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

Knocking on every door

“An outstanding trade unionist”

A no-nonsense approach on the shop floor

Disabled workers

Changing the narrative

Millie Apedo-Amah

The vital role of a train guard

Evelyn Martin MBE

A lifetime of learning

Musician's Union

Four reasons why musicians need unions

Galvanising a community in times of strife

Many routes to an education

Health and Safety

60 seconds at Sellafield

Gail Cartwright, Midwife

Squeezing our public sector professionals

Show the love – hug your school!

Anne Cox, headteacher

Barry Downey, Firefighter

Squeezing our public sector professionals

Craig Johnstone

The Churchill Cleaners: five tips to winning a dispute

Health and Safety

60 seconds on a North Sea rig

Fighting for change at McDonalds

“A 200-word essay changed my life”

Queueing up to learn

Helping girls plan for life after football

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

Global Solidarity

From the college canteen to international leadership

We turned something negative into something really positive

Pauline Carwood

"30 years ago women didn't drive trains"

Dudley Hackling

‘It all comes down to communication and confidence’

Angela Rayner MP

A remarkable journey to Westminster

Galvanising a community in times of strife

A young postie with a passion for fairness

People don’t say no enough

Fighting for permanent contracts

Winning for care workers on zero-hours

Supporting women survivors of violence

Satnam Singh Ner

Bringing diversity into the workplace

Public Services

Deborah Bell and Karen McArthur

The faces behind library losses

Booking in time to destress

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

“A union is about being united and working together”

Canon Steven Saxby

Five reasons why faith workers need unions

“Actors have always been part of the gig economy”

“The classes are a great networking event.”

Yorkshire and Humber

Jake O’Malley

Three steps to building a strong union

Apprenticeships

“An apprenticeship was a no-brainer”

Firefighter and FBU official

Alisdair Kairns

Not all glitz and glamour at the movies

Five things I learnt from being a union member

Health and Safety

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

Wasting no time to build a movement

Changing the conversation about mental health at work

The home of the British trade union movement

“Journalism was suddenly being equated with espionage”

Fiercely intelligent, influential and inspirational

Cricket ball makers strike

Small but mighty

Albert Mansbridge

Championing education for working people

Campaigning for paid holiday for everyone

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