History of trade unions in the United Kingdom TUC General Council. He focused on racial issues. British unions collaborated with the AFL–CIO in the United States on international projects. In the 1980s, worldwide union attention focused on the Solidarity union movement in Poland, which finally succeeded in breaking the communist control of that country. Norman Willis, the general secretary of the TUC, vigorously promoted union support for Solidarity. The nuclear disarmament movement, which played a major role in Labour Party internal politics in the 1980s, was primarily a middle-class movement that had little support in the labour movement. Major strike action by British unions during the 1978–1979 Winter
Solidarity Movement with Chile Socialist Allende government of Chile fell to a U.S.-involved military "coup d'état" on September 11, 1973. The Pinochet regime targeted and forced the disappearance of political opposition. At least 200,000 people left Chile as exiles and settled, in highest numbers, in Europe and North America. In exile, the Chilean left established an "external front" to fight the dictatorship. They joined with allies and created a culturally vibrant and politically diverse solidarity movement with the Chilean Left. U.S. solidarity groups operated in New York, Berkeley, CA, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere. Movement groups operated out of Amsterdam, London, and other European cities.