Ben Tillett

Tillett, a tea warehouse labourer, led the 1889 London Dock Strike with Tom Mann and John Burns, when tens of thousands of casual dockers stopped work for the "docker's tanner", sixpence an hour. Australian unions sent around £30,000 to sustain them, and they won. The strike proved that unskilled workers could be organised and launched "new unionism"; Tillett's Dock, Wharf, Riverside and General Labourers' Union later merged into the Transport and General Workers' Union, now part of Unite.