The Trades Union Congress first met on 2nd June 1868 but only The Guardian reported it
The TUC met for the first time at the Mechanics Institute in central Manchester, after a call was issued by the Manchester and Salford Trades Council, on June 2nd 1868.
While both the Times and the Telegraph (founded 1855) were in daily publication in 1868 only one paper, the Manchester Guardian, reported the proceedings day by day.
It might be thought that this was simply because the paper was Manchester based and that no doubt was a part of it but it was more complex than that.
1868 was well before the rise of independent labour politics on a significant scale (ILP founded 1893) and many trade unionists were supporters of the Liberal Party. Indeed the leader of late Chartism Ernest Jones who worked with Marx and Engels was associated with the ‘left’ of Manchester Liberalism before his death in 1869.
The Manchester Guardian of course was also a Liberal Party supporter and that came with a particular view of trade unionism- not that of strikes and pickets- but of a way of representing working men (this was 1868) as an important interest group in society.
Whether the Guardian will remember this 156 years on is questionable. In 1968 to mark the 100th anniversary they published a special supplement with an interview with the then TUC General Secretary George Woodcock who inevitably was talking about changing times for trade unionism and the need to modernise.
John Torode noted (2nd June 1968) that ‘new methods of bargaining are throwing new burdens on union officials. It is no longer enough to be able to thump the conference table, bluff and shout and eventually walk away with the money’. Those were the days…
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