The TUC exists to make the working world a better place for everyone. We bring together more than 5.5 million working people who make up our 48 member unions.
In 1868, a group of trade unionists from all over the UK came to Manchester, and together they held the first meeting of the Trades Union Congress, at the Mechanics’ Institute.
This first Congress passed a resolution “that it is highly desirable that the trades of the United Kingdom should hold an annual congress, for the purpose of bringing the trades into closer alliance, and to take action in all Parliamentary matters pertaining to the general interests of the working classes”.
Over the following years, the TUC grew and established itself as the voice of trade unions in the UK. In its first decades, the TUC concentrated on influencing government policy, but from the 1920s onwards it took a more active role in industrial matters, playing a key part in co-ordinating the 1926 general strike.
