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
Mass movement Mass movement A mass movement denotes a political party or movement which is supported by large segments of a population. Political movements that typically advocate the creation of a mass movement include the ideologies of communism and fascism. Both communists and fascists typically support the creation of mass movements as a means to overthrow a government and create their own government, the mass movement then being used afterwards to protect the government from being overthrown itself. The social scientific study of mass movements focuses on such elements as charisma, leadership, active minorities, cults and sects, followers, mass man and mass