World Federation of Trade Unions Records

Records consist primarily of the minutes, proceedings and reports of WFTU officers and governance committees, produced and presented at WFTU conferences held in London (1945, 1949); Paris (1945, 1947, 1949); Moscow (1946, 1970); Trieste (1946); Prague (1947, 1958, 1963, 1967); Geneva (1948); Rome (1948); Peking (1949); Budapest (1950, 1969, 1972); Bucharest (1950, 1971); Berlin (1951, 1958); Vienna (1951-1953); Warsaw (1954, 1959); Sofia (1956, 1966); Nicosia (1966); Khartoum (1970); and Varna (1973). Also include some personal correspondence and WFTU materials collected by Adolf F. Germer (socialist; official and organizer of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) and various coal and petroleum workers' unions) during his attendance as the CIO delegate to the WFTU conference (Prague, 1946), and his membership on the WFTU Committee on German Affairs (1947).

Governance records (1945-1973) include minutes, resolutions and proceedings of the WFTU Executive Bureau, General Councils, and committees (1945-1973) and of joint meetings of the WFTU and International Trade Secretariats (1948); also financial statements of the WFTU (1945-1949).

Reports and publications (1946-1973) consist mainly of unpublished reports and some pamphlets produced and presented at the annual sessions of the Executive Bureau and General Councils of the WFTU; also reports pertaining to special policies and activities of the WFTU. Materials pertaining to the WFTU's internal organization discuss or document the creation of WFTU international trade departments and negotiations between WFTU and International Trade Secretariats (1947-1948); establishment of WFTU departments on professionals, metal trades workers, miners, textile workers, and agricultural and forestry workers (1946-1964); charter of union rights (1954); and various revisions and amendments to the WFTU constitution (1948-1970). Also include documents regarding relations between the WFTU and the United Nations, International Labour Organization, Congress of Industrial Organizations, American Federation of Labor, and Allied Commission (Berlin); and various conferences, including the Pan Asiatic Trade Union Conference, the Pan Africa Conference, and the World Trade Union Congress (1948-1973).

Also, WFTU policy statements regarding union activity and socioeconomic conditions in Spain, Iran, Egypt, South Africa, Greece, Occupied Germany and various colonial countries (1946); activities in Trieste, Tunisia, Iran, Japan, Austria, the international coal countries, Greece and Portugal (1947-1948); in Burma, Italy, Israel, and Japan (1949-1952); and in the European coal and steel community, Vietnam, colonial and newly independent countries, and Palestine (1953-1965).

Additional reports (some of which were produced by WFTU officers Louis Saillant, Leon Jouhaux, S. Rostovsky, Fernando Santi and R. Vivimari) regard WFTU policy on: professional workers, migrations, postwar reconstruction and grants-in-aid, equal work and equal wages for women workers, and union rights (1946-1948); racial discrimination, currency devaluations, the international labor movement, and the WFTU delegation to Israel (1949-1950); social security, struggles for political and union rights for international workers (1951-1952); atomic war and peace, women workers and young workers (1953-1958); and the European Economic Community and monopolies, protection of victims of anti-union repression, and general WFTU activities (1959-1966); also, international union relations, unions and scientific and technical progress, unity among unions, monetary crises, economic and social demands of workers in capitalist

countries, and union education (1967-1973).

Additional documents collected by Adolf F. Germer (CIO delegate to the WFTU) include various bulletins and press releases of the U.S. military government in Germany; pamphlets and reports pertaining to the trade union movement, social welfare, women workers, and political issues in Czechoslovakia (1945-1947); and press releases and publications of the Freier Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund.

Also, a file of correspondence between Germer and various WFTU leaders, American union leaders and politicians. Correspondents include Philip Murray (president, CIO); Louis Saillant (general secretary, WFTU); William Green (president, American Federation of Labor); Wayne Morse (U.S. senator) and Leon Blum (prime minister of France). The correspondence generally pertains to WFTU conferences, publications, development of international unionism, and relations between unions and the WFTU (1944-1947).