No 1/ 2007 International Trade Union Movement: Mergers and Contradictions by Rudolf Traub-Merz and Jürgen Eckl In early November 2006, 1700 delegates from 156 countries met in Vienna for an event unprecedented in the history of the international trade union movement. They dissolved two globally operating and competing international confederations – the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions­ICFTU and the denominationally oriented World Confederation of Labour-WCL – and founded the International Trade Union Confederation-ITUC, comprising 304 affiliated federations in 156 countries in which 168 million workers are organised across the world. Congress delegates were firmly convinced that the globalisation of political institutions and the globalisation of business and markets must be followed by the globalisation of trade unions. 1. The birth of the United Trade Union International ITUC And while business gains strength through competition, workers benefit from organisa­tional cohesion. Globalisation of trade union­ism stands for presence across the globe as well as speaking with a single voice. Delegates at the Vienna Congress were correspondently jubilant. In the words of ITUC Secretary General Guy Ryder, this merger is eminently important: „There is a real weight of responsibility and of history on our shoulders. Together, united, strong, the ITUC will play its part in building social justice, freedom, equality and peace – the ideals that brought us this far and will take us forward together much further.“ 2. Ending almost 100 years of division The history of international trade unionism has so far been marked by long periods of division and adversity. Disregarding the short-lived existence of the International Workingmen´ s Association-IWA founded under the leadership of Karl Marx(First International, 1864-1876) which fell victim to the ideological battle be­tween Marx and Bakunin, cross-border alli­ances of workers followed two separate lines of development from the start. International federations were initially formed at trade and occupational levels and at the eve of World War I, 33 International Trade Secretariats­ITS had been established. Although craft unionism was soon replaced by industrial groups unionism in many countries(in Western and Central Europe around 1900, in the USA from the 1930s onwards), industrial unions kept their original names(misnomer ITS) for a long time. It was only in 2002 that the 10 trade secretariats which had been left following consolidation changed their names and started to call themselves Global Union Federations- GUFs. The change of name was the result of new lines of work; nowadays the GUFs are concerned with the introduction of minimum social standards in multinational