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
History of the socialist movement in the United States vote for Socialism, but that under the name of liberalism, they would adopt every fragment of the socialist program". When the twenties began, "... the IWW was destroyed, the Socialist party falling apart. The strikes were beaten down by force, and the economy was doing just well enough for just enough people to prevent mass rebellion". Thus the decline of the socialist movement during the early 20th century was the result of a number of constrictions and attacks from several directions: The socialists had lost a major ally in the Wobblies and their free speech had been restricted, if not