The National Union of Public Employees journal, December 1954
The TUC Library would like to wish all our users and supporters a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year.
The library will be closed from 5pm on Wednsday 23rd December, re-opening at 9am on Monday 4th January 2016.
Students on the Researching Social Life course, holding the Government report into the 1968 Ford sewing machinists strike (left) and the “Dictionary of Employments Open to Women”, 1898.
This week students from the Researching Social Life module at London Met University have been using the TUC Library to complete their coursework assignments.
Ragiatu Turay (above, left) was researching the significance of the 1968 strike by women at the Ford Dagenham factory and its impact on the struggle for equal pay. The library contains a large collection on the subject, including the official Government report into the dispute. You can find more information on the topic on our website Winning Equal Pay: the Value of Women’s Work.
Mary Lewis (above, right) chose to research the entry of women into the labour market in the First and Second World Wars. Whilst conducting her research, she found a booklet called the “Dictionary of Employments Open to Women”, produced by the Women’s Institute in 1898. Some pages of the dictionary had already been selected for inclusion on our history website The Union Makes Us Strong. You can see some pages from the dictionary here and here.
If you would like to find out more about the TUC Library and what it contains, get in touch.
We found this recruitment leaflet in the collection this week. Produced by the TUC in 1936 it uses quotations from famous actors of the day to appeal for the benefits of union membership.
‘What the stars say – Heed!’, TUC recruitment leaflet, 1936
The back page of the leaflet states that depsite the glamourous view of actors and actresses “they, like you, have their very real problems in connection with their work”.
To find out more about the TUC Library collections and how to visit, get in touch.
Today is International Human Rights Day, commemorating the ratification of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the UN General Assembly on Decemeber 10th 1948.
The original Declaration set out a series of individual, social and political rights, including Articles 23 and 24 on employment:
Today (8th December) is the 50th anniversary of the passing of the Race Relations Act.
The TUC Library holds a copy of the Act and a unique collection of other material on the subject of race relations and anti-discrimination. You can see one of our previous blog posts on the subject here.
A selection of publications on AIDS/HIV, 1980s – present.
Today is World AIDS Day, seeking to raise awareness of the condition.
Campaigns to tackle discrimination of those with HIV in the workplace have been instrumental in challenging ignorance and prejudice in the wider society.
Unions have played an important part in campaigning on this issue, as the selection of material in the picture above demonstrates. The TUC Library contains a broad range of similar publications on the subject.
A new guide to tackling HIV discrimination at work was published by the TUC this year. You can find it on the TUC website here.