This week we celebrate the 150th birthday of the Trades Union Congress (TUC),the first coming together in 1868 of trade unionists from all over the UK at the Manchester Mechanics Institute to form the annual Congress that we hold to still. At that time women made up around 10% of union membership.

Women have always played a significant role in the workforce though. From agricultural labour to the jute mills of Dundee, factories and works, women have also been natural leaders at work. Women’s war effort on the two world wars is well documented. We know of the women munitions workers, engineers, communications, transport and infrastructural workers and land girls. We were taught that women were expected to give up their skills and shelf their abilities when the men returned from war.

Unionised labour is stereotyped as male blue collar heavy industry workers. How things have changed. Today more people…