Glasgow Trades Council

Glasgow Trades Council is an association of trade union branches in Glasgow in Scotland.

The trades council was founded in 1858 as the Glasgow United Trades Council. Future MP Alexander MacDonald of the miners played an important role, but did not hold any prominent post, and was able to attend only as an honorary member of the Flint Glass Makers' Sick and Friendly Society.

As the trades council of a major industrial city, it began playing a national role, and in 1864 it hosted an early meeting of trade unions from across the UK. By this point, about two-thirds of the trade unions in the city had affiliated, with the important Lanarkshire Miners' County Union following in the 1870s. The council also helped set up unions in areas where there was no appropriate body, organising unions for sailors, carters, and most importantly what became the National Union of Dock Labourers.

In 1884, the council ran four candidates for Glasgow Town Council, without success. However, another attempt in 1888 led to the election of H. Tait, followed a year later by James Millar Jack, and in 1890 by A. J. Hunter and John Battersby. This experience led the council to support Keir Hardie's candidature at the Mid Lanarkshire by-election, 1888; it supported but did not affiliate to Hardie's Scottish Labour Party, and played a central role in establishing the Scottish United Trades Councils Labour Party. Both labour parties stood candidates in the city at the 1892 general election.

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