International Teachers' Professional Secretariat

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The International Trade Secretariat of Teachers (IBSL) was an umbrella organization of national teachers' unions founded in 1928 under the umbrella of the International Trade Union Confederation (IGB).

Founding history

Under the umbrella of the International Trade Union Confederation existed mid-1920s, 26 so-called trade secretariats , in which the national trade union organizations by industry organizations coordinated their work at international level. The IBSL was added in 1928 as the 27th trade secretariat .

“A second tendency towards loosening up the directional trade union internationals is linked to the existence of the so-called international trade union offices. These are international federations of individual, i.e. branch or professional unions, some with a long tradition. such as B. Metalworkers 'Federation, Chemical Workers' Federation, etc. [...] They have an institutional point of reference above all in the International Labor Organization founded in Geneva after World War I , which initially acted as an organ of the League of Nations , whose end was able to survive and in which Governments, employers and trade unions are represented. "

On the homepage of today's successor organization to the IBSL , Education International , its history is traced back to 1912, when an international committee of national teachers' associations in public schools was founded in Belgium. The work of this organization was initially prohibited by the First World War, before 1920, the Education Workers' International , the International education workers emerged. After Gries, it is the forerunner of the IBSL, whereby Education International names other organizations: the World Federation of Education Associations (WFEA), founded in San Francisco in 1923, the International Federation of Teacher Associations . According to Education International , all of the associations mentioned - including the IBSL , which was then founded - were smaller organizations whose members were based in Europe and North America.

Between 1926 and 1928 the IGB succeeded in creating the conditions for a new international organization: the IBSL , based in Amsterdam . The founding members were teacher unions from France, Holland, Luxembourg and Austria. On the German side, the Free Teachers 'Union of Germany (from April 1, 1924 Allgemeine Free Teachers' Union of Germany , AFLD) took part in the founding meeting of the IBSL as a guest, but did not join the IBSL until its association day in April 1927 .

Schnorbach writes about the goals and the development of the ISBL :

“The aims of the IBSL were to strengthen the affiliated organizations, improve the situation of the teaching staff, safeguard the political rights of the teaching staff, improve teaching, educate people for peace, and promote the working class with culture. In 1933 the IBSL comprised 12 organizations from 10 countries (in order of their membership size: France, Holland, Austria, Belgium, Dutch India, Germany, Switzerland, Czechoslovakia, Latvia, Luxembourg) with a membership of 108,000. 1940 when it was dissolved as a result During the war the IBSL had 5 organizations with 225,000 members (Mexico, France, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland). "

In Germany, the AFLD disbanded in the spring of 1933; From 1934 until its dissolution in 1939, its seat in the IBSL was taken over by the Association of German Teacher Emigrants , which the IBSL had helped to establish and in which many AFLD members who had emigrated found a new organizational home. Heinrich Rodenstein , who belonged to the Association of German Teacher Emigrants , represented it at the IBSL since the end of 1935 .

activities

The IBSL , whose office initially had three members, later five, and to which Artur Bratu belonged as Brussels secretary , had published a quarterly newsletter from 1928 and from 1937 to 1939 also a quarterly scientific journal entitled "Education et Culture".

The ITUC adopted the International Schools and Education Program of the International Trade Union Confederation at its Brussels Congress in 1933 . The ISBL initiated the preparation of this program in 1930 and played a key role in shaping it.

“It should lay down 'the broad outline of a program that the working class wishes to see realized'. These basic features should apply in each country as guidelines for the creation of a school and educational program tailored to one's own political and social circumstances. Whether and to what extent the program could be implemented in the individual countries in the short time that fascism allowed them, still needs further research. "

One focus of the IBSL work was the annual summer schools "on topics such as unified school, school and world peace, working class and school, renewal of culture, critical science and career advice, which were attended by an average of 120 participants.":
- 1929 in Brussels: School and world peace
- 1930 in Paris: unified school
- 1931 in Hamburg: working class and school
- 1933 in Amsterdam: the practical struggle against the war
- 1937 in Pontigny
- 1938 in Nice.

In the course of the consolidation of the fascist rule structures, the support of politically persecuted colleagues became increasingly important for the work of the IBSL . Seven state associations affiliated to it were banned over the years, and the IBSL set up the Karl Gareis Fund at its 1932 congress in Geneva to help persecuted members . But its performance reached its limits as early as 1933.

“The worsening situation, especially in Germany, but also in Austria, since the beginning of 1933 almost exhausted the financial possibilities of the Karl-Gareis-Fonds, so that the IBSL was forced to temporarily intensify efforts by the national sections to help the refugees to call German colleagues. At the meeting on August 7th, 1933 in Amsterdam, the IBSL General Council decided to issue a solidarity stamp. It was distributed in France, Belgium and Spain in late 1933 / early 1934. In Holland, the teachers' union carried out an intensive advertising campaign in its magazine De Bode. The collected donations should be divided between the Karl Gareis Fund, the Matteotti Fund of the IGB and the relief funds of the national sections of the IBSLa. By the summer of 1934 for the General Council meeting in Aussig , the financial situation of the Karl Gareis Fund had improved again. In principle, the IBSL office was responsible for allocating support funds from the Karl Gareis Fund. The administration was the responsibility of the IBSL treasurer, C. Moerman from Holland. "

The outbreak of World War II also brought about the end of the work of the IBSL . Many activists, including many Germans, managed to flee to England, where many of them worked in the International Group of Teachers Trade Unionists .

“The 'International Group of Teachers Trade Unionists' was both a continuation and a new beginning of the International Trade Secretariat of Teachers, which was lost in 1940. Artur Bratu, former technical secretary of the IBSL in Brussels, helped set up the International Group through Walter Schevenels, secretary of the ITUC in London, where the ITUC had moved its headquarters since the outbreak of war. Discussions in the group focused on problems of union organization for teachers and the role of education in post-war Europe. Representatives from Germany, Austria, CSR, Poland, Belgium, France and Spain took part in the work. "

For Schnorbach, the International Group of Teachers Trade Unionists is “both a continuation and a new beginning of the International Trade Secretariat of Teachers, which was lost in 1940”. He mentions Walter Schevenels and Artur Bratu as people who drove forward its development .

New beginning after the Second World War

It was not until 1951 that an official successor organization to the ISBL was constituted. "Since it was re-established in 1951 as the International Federation of Free Teachers' Unions (IFFL), it has acted as the International Trade Secretariat of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU). In 1993, the IFFL merged with the liberal-conservative World Association of Teachers' Organizations (WVLO), founded in 1952, to form the international education organization . "

literature

  • Hermann Schnorbach : teacher in the International Trade Union Confederation. Origin and development of the international professional secretariat of teachers from 1928 to 1945 , Juventa Verlag, Weinheim / Munich, 1989, ISBN 3-7799-0692-9 .
  • Hermann Schnorbach (ed.): Teachers and schools under the swastika. Documents of the resistance from 1930 to 1945 , Athenäum Verlag, Königstein im Taunus, 1983, ISBN 3-7610-8275-4 .
  • Hildegard Feidel-Mertz / Hermann Schnorbach: teachers in emigration. The Association of German Teacher Emigrants (1933–39) in the traditional context of the democratic teachers' movement , Beltz Verlag, Weinheim and Basel, 1981, ISBN 3-407-54114-7 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Hermann Schnorbach: Teachers and Schools under the Swastika , p. 78
  2. ^ Wichard Woyke (ed.): Handwortbuch Internationale Politik, Springer Fachmedien, Wiesbaden, ISBN 978-3-8100-0196-2 , p. 143. See also: Peter Rütters: Internationale Berufssekretariate. Origin - development - activities
  3. ↑ a b Education International: Origins and history (see web links )
  4. ↑ Rainer Gries: Overview of the organizational development of international trade union organizations (see web links )
  5. ↑ For the complex prehistory of the establishment, in which party political differences between social democratic and communist positions also played a decisive role, see Section 2.4, On the international teachers' union movement , in: Hildegard Feidel-Mertz / Hermann Schnorbach: Lehrer in der Emigration , p. 50 ff .
  6. ↑ Hildegard Feidel-Mertz / Hermann Schnorbach: Teachers in Emigration , p. 48
  7. ↑ Hildegard Feidel-Mertz / Hermann Schnorbach: Teachers in Emigration , p. 121
  8. ↑ Hildegard Feidel-Mertz / Hermann Schnorbach: Teachers in Emigration , p. 57
  9. ↑ Hildegard Feidel-Mertz / Hermann Schnorbach: Teachers in Emigration , p. 58
  10. ↑ Hildegard Feidel-Mertz / Hermann Schnorbach: teachers in emigration , p. 58 and Heinrich Rodenstein: Association of German teacher emigrants
  11. ↑ Hildegard Feidel-Mertz / Hermann Schnorbach: Teachers in Emigration , p. 82
  12. ↑ a b Hildegard Feidel-Mertz / Hermann Schnorbach: Teachers in Emigration , p. 124
  13. ^ Hans-Wolfgang Platzer and Torsten Müller: The global and European trade union associations. Handbook and analyzes of transnational trade union policy , 1st half volume, edition sigma, Berlin, 2009, ISBN 978-3-8360-8709-4 , p. 382