The National League of the Blind was the earliest trade union for disabled people, formed in 1894 and becoming the National League for the Blind and Disabled in 1968. Public opinion at the time was that blind people were not able to work and were thought of as a burden upon the government and society. The first General Secretary, Ben Purse, a piano tuner from Salford, was blind from the age of 13. At the time disabled workers were being exploited in the industry and the union became affiliated to the TUC in 1902.

One hundred years ago today the National Federation of Women Workers (NFWW) merged with the National Union of General Workers (now GMB) in the belief that class solidarity was more important than separate women’s organisations.

At the time Mary MacArthur wrote:

"Inside the national union we shall be able to demonstrate the possibility of a great industrial organisation of men and women, and have one in which women are not submerged, but one in which they take as active a part as men."