In the past, the Trust had made travel grants, with a view to publishing the results, or had commissioned research, again with a view to publishing the results. More information can be found in Overview.

However, in 2006 the Trades Union Congress came to the Trust to discuss their proposal to set up an equal pay archive. Their plan was to record on film an oral history of the development of equal pay. They wanted to prepare a pilot, taking some of the early key cases, as a basis for obtaining further funding. They were prepared to put up a considerable amount of money to do this, but asked the Trust to put up some money as well and to co-operate in setting up the first set of films.

The Trust had been formed to continue the pioneering work of David Wainwright, whose work had been very much in this area. Indeed, he had been directly involved in some of the cases suggested for the archive. There were other connections with the Trust as well. The initial film was to be the story of the Ford sewing machinists, who were to receive the Breakthrough Award later in 2006. Click here for more information on the award to them. A clip from this first film for the archive was, in fact, shown at the Wainwright Trust Evening in 2006, before the presentation of the award to them.

Another pilot film was to tell the story of the NHS speech and language therapists. Sara Leslie, who was one of the solicitors involved, had won the very first Breakthrough Award in 1999, along with Margaret Wall, who was then a trade union official with MSF (now Baroness Wall of New Barnet), for their work on this case. Sara Leslie features in the film, as does Lord Lester QC, one of the trustees of the Wainwright Trust.

Yet another of the films was to deal with the case of Julie Hayward, in which David Wainwright was involved. Julie Hayward was a panel member at the first "brains trust" meeting held by the Trust at which the awards were presented to Sara Leslie and Margaret Wall.

Although the amount needed to ensure that the pilot filming could take place stretched the resources of the Trust, the trustees felt that this was an important educational project which needed to go ahead whilst the participants in these ground-breaking activities were still available. They were happy, therefore, to provide the contribution needed.

This enabled the TUC to make a start and then to obtain further funding from the European Social Fund and other sources.

These initial films, together with much other information can be found on the TUC's Winning Equal Pay website.