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TULO was created in 1994, but the relationship between the Labour Party and the Trade Union movement goes back over 100 years.
In 1899 a Doncaster member of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, Thomas R. Steels, proposed in his union branch that the Trade Union Congress call a special conference to bring together all the left-wing organisations and form them into a single body which would sponsor Parliamentary candidates. The motion was passed at all stages by the TUC, and this special conference was held at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon Street, London on February 27-28, 1900. The meeting was attended by a broad spectrum of working-class and left-wing organisations; trade unions representing about one third of the membership of the TUC delegates.
The Conference created an association called the Labour Representation Committee (LRC), meant to coordinate attempts to support MPs, MPs sponsored by trade unions and representing the working-class population. It had no single leader. In the absence of one, the Independent Labour Party nominee Ramsay MacDonald was elected as Secretary. He had the difficult task of keeping the various strands of opinions in the LRC united. The October 1900 'Khaki election' came too soon for the new party to effectively campaign. Only 15 candidatures were sponsored, but two were successful: Keir Hardie in Merthyr Tydfil and Richard Bell in Derby.
On February 15, 1906 the LRC's Members of Parliament decided adopt the name "The Labour Party". Keir Hardie, who had taken a leading role in getting the party established, was elected as Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party.
The Trade Union and Labour Party Liaison Organisation (TULO) was set up in 1994 by a motion to the Labour Party's Annual Conference. It had several forerunning organisations that co-ordinated trade union support for the Labour Party at election times such as trade unions for a Labour Victory and Trade Unionists For Labour. TULO is different in that, as a more formal organisation, it serves the dual purposes of not only co-ordinating trade union support for the Labour Party at elections, but also of acting as a channel of communication between the Party and its union partners on an ongoing basis.
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