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This article studies the Italian "trade union feminism" of the 1970s, with a specific focus on the education of working women. During this period, Italian women trade unionists involved in the second wave of feminism developed a range of initiatives to promote the participation of women in trade unions and, more generally, enhance their role in the public sphere. Although the subject of very little study, these women’s project to get involved in both class struggle and feminist activism yielded highly innovative outcomes. They chose to take advantage of a new social advance which allowed the organisation of courses for workers during working time: the "150 hours for the right to education". Their choice paid off: the numbers of female participants, who were reluctant to take part in mixed courses, increased every year and the programmes developed along strongly feminist lines. The first part of the article presents the key players and events of the period (the trade unions and their struggles, educational reforms, trade union feminism); in the second part, it focuses, using written and oral sources, on the organisation of women-only courses in three case studies in the cities of the “industrial triangle” (Turin, Milan, Genoa).