ICFTU after Ten Years: Problems and Prospects

Abstract

Nearly ten years ago, in a discussion in this journal of the newly created International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, Professor Adolf Sturmthal observed: new International can work successfully only if it is based on the realization that the trade union struggle in different parts of the world must follow different roads, and that the social evolution in different parts of the world proceeds in manifold ways. The course of events since then has shown that this was a prediction of the broad issue on which the future growth and vitality of the ICFTU would turn, as well as a prescription for policy in the field of international trade unionism. This article discusses and appraises the significance of five major problems that the ICFTU faces as it enters its second decade: the relatively slow growth in membership; the emergence of regional labor organizations independent of the ICFTU and a potential challenge to its influence among workers in the so-called uncommitted'' nations; communist challenge and rivalry in many parts of the world; the problem of autonomy for the ICFTU's own regional organs; and the problem of the functional relationship of the International Trade Secretariats to the international labor movement of the free world. (Author's abstract courtesy EBSCO.)

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