International Trade Union Confederation (1901–1945)
The (historic) International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) (English International Federation of Trade Unions - IFTU) was an international trade union federation.
The idea for the establishment arose at the first conference of national trade unions in Copenhagen in 1901. National trade unions from Belgium, Denmark, Germany , England, Finland and Norway met annually and in 1903, at the conference in Dublin, the creation of an international secretariat decided in Berlin under Carl Legien . Annual reports from the countries regarding trade were evaluated here. At the 8th conference in Zurich in 1913, the American delegation proposed the name International Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU) (German name: Internationaler Unionssbund). Legien held the chair until 1919.
The individual trade unions paid the IFTU an amount ranging from the beginning of 50 Pfg. (1903, per 100 members) to 4 Reichsmarks (1913, per 1,000 members). During this time, the unions of the countries Holland, Austria, Hungary, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Serbia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Bosnia, Transvaal and in 1909 the USA joined, so that at the outbreak of the First World War 20 countries were represented.
First World War
The war stopped development and the exchange of information could not continue. The members from the states of the Entente decided in 1916 to establish their own branch office in Leeds for the war time. At the conference in Bern on October 1, 1917, only representatives of neutral states and the Central Powers could take part (16 countries in total), French and Italians were refused passports and Belgians could not appear either. Americans were not represented at either meeting.
The program adopted in Bern, which was based on the Leedser program of the trade unions of the Entente states, called for the introduction of internationally standardized labor laws and the establishment of an International Labor Organization (ILO) within the League of Nations . The eight-hour day and the establishment of general state education were also demanded. To this end, state and trade union representatives should be represented in the League of Nations to be founded and this should be effectively controlled in order to prevent reaction and oppression of the working class .
1918-1930
At the Amsterdam Congress in August 1919, at which 14 countries (except Italy, Greece, Canada and Hungary) represented 18 million workers, it was decided that the Labor Charter, according to which the new ILO was working, should be replaced by the Bern resolutions and the blockade should be abandoned by the Soviet Union . The IFTU, however, was unable to assert itself. Carl Legien was replaced as General Secretary by Edo Fimmen from the Netherlands .
In the years that followed, the IFTU was attacked from left and right. The Soviet Union created the Red Trade Union International (Profintern) in Moscow in 1921 , which its competitors now called the “ Amsterdam Trade Union International ”. One of their general secretaries, Tomski , sought closer cooperation with the Amsterdamers, which Stalin refused, however. The IFTU was then exposed to a campaign by the Comintern , which it presented at its fourth (1922) and fifth (1924) Congresses as "reformist" and contrary to the "revolutionary workers". The US American Federation of Labor (AFL) in turn complained, still under the impression of the Palmer Raids , "revolutionary principles" in the organization, which it did not approve.
IFTU called for the blockade of Miklós Horthys ' Hungarians as well as an agreement with Profintern, the US unions and the "countries of the Far East". Ultimately, it worked with the ILO, cultivated a social democratic orientation and accepted its Labor Charter. She protested against the occupation of the Ruhr and advocated a German general strike .
In 1921 she represented 24 countries with 24 million union members and collected 800,000 guilders for the Russian famine in Chuvashia .
From 1930
The IFTU's secretariat was in Amsterdam until 1930, then in Berlin until 1933. When the National Socialists came to power, it moved to Paris and in 1940 to London. The organization turned against fascism from 1924. During World War II, she supported refugees from the Axis powers, participated in propaganda and in the underground struggle on the side of the Allies. 1945 IFTU was involving the Soviet Union from the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU English: World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU)) replaced. Its dissolution lasted until 1953, while the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) remained. With the beginning of the Cold War split in 1949 from the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) of the non-Communist International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU, English: International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU)) from.
Web links
- IFTU Archive , Amsterdam, International Institute for Social History (English)
literature
- Geert Van Goethem: The Amsterdam International; The World of the International Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU), 1913-1945 . Aldershot, Ashgate, 2006. ISBN 0-7546-5254-8
- Edo Fimmen: The International Federation of Trade Unions. Development and Aims . Pub.No.1. Amsterdam 1922 ( PDF )
- Sassenbach, Johann: Twenty-five Years of the International Trade Union Movement, Amsterdam / Berlin 1926 (International Trade Union Library; H. 4/5)
- Victor Silverman: Imagining Internationalism in American and British Labor, 1939-1949 . Urbana / Chicago. University of Illinois Press. 2000