Initially organised as a trade union council to be the labour wing of the People's National Party (PNP) in 1943, the organisation split in 1952 with the formation of the National Workers Union (which maintained alignment with the PNP).
The TUC was a founding member of the Jamaica Confederation of Trade Unions.
The Trade Union Congress came into existence as a result of shifts in politics in Jamaica in the 1940s and early 1950s.
In 1943, Manley reorganised the council as the Trade Union Council, which grouped 16 small unions together in alignment to the PNP, in contrast to BITU which was responsible for the foundation of the Jamaica Labour Party in that year.
This had 1,000 members a year later, but disintegrated in 1952 following disagreements on whether to merge into another new split from the TUC, the National Workers' Union.