The Trades Union Congress in the International Labour Movement

In Alan Campbell, Nina Fishman, John McIlroy eds. British Trade Unions and Industrial Politics: the Post-War Compromise, 1945-64, (Ashgate, 1999)

Anthony Carew

As the second largest national trade union centre in the non-Communist world, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) was a major force in international labour circles in the years after the War. More than any other central organization, the TUC played a leading role in the evolution of the international labour movement. It was pivotal in the short-lived attempt in these years to unify the world movement within the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) formed in Paris in October 1945. It led the 1949 walkout from the WFTU and then largely coordinated the preparatory work leading to the formation of the rival International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) later that year. And in the late 1960s, with the ICFTU failing to live up to the expectations of its principal backers, seemingly unable to provide a platform for effective trade union coordination in Europe, and unsympathetic to making common cause with Communist labour bodies, the TUC took the first steps that would later lead to the founding of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) with its narrower geographical focus but more inclusive membership. Various factors contributed to the TUC having a leading role in international affairs. Its numerical strength and the financial contribution that it was prepared to make to international bodies, at times outstripping in per capita terms that of other big national centres, guaranteed it a seat at the top table. Beyond that, it enjoyed considerable esteem, especially among northern European and (notwithstanding the legacy of colonialism) many Commonwealth trade union centres. Generally the TUC took it for granted that its leading role was justified because of its long experience. In its own internal reports and memoranda it would distinguish between the 'mature', 'developed', 'stable' and 'experienced' national centres, among which it was paramount, and the rest - more recently established, possibly financially insecure or organizationally unstable, perhaps as a result of internal conflicts or their dependence on political parties - whose role was to follow and be guided by bodies like the TUC.

In these years, two broad issues dominated TUC international policy: the relationship with Communist organizations and work with trade unions in developing countries. Consideration of these brings into focus two sets of relationships of great importance in TUC international work-the first with the secretariat of the ICFTU and the second with the leadership of the American Federation of Labour - Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIО), the West's largest trade union centre and the TUC's chief rival for leadership of the international labour movement.¹

The experience of membership of the WFTU

The TUC's postwar relations with Communist organizations were profoundly influenced by the formative experience of affiliation to the WFTU which, in the late 1940s, came to be increasingly dominated by Communists and fellow travellers. Walter Citrine led the TUC into the WFTU against a background of considerable rank and file and international pressure for a continuation of the wartime alliance of the Soviet, American and British trade unions. From the start there were misgivings within the General Council and Citrine, who was to become WFTU President, warned the founding congress not to get sidetracked into politics, otherwise widely differing aspirations would divide them.² Their job, he said, was to build an international geared to practical day-to-day trade union work and the pursuit of tangible gains for members of the unions. The original intention was to establish an international structure that would embrace all elements of the trade union movement. But recognizing the possibility of disagreement over the plan to integrate into the WFTU the autonomous International Trade Secretariats (ITS) which organized unions in particular trades and industries, the TUC made clear from the outset that a satisfactory settlement on this key issue was a condition of its continued membership. It had thereby left itself an avenue of retreat should its misgivings be realized.

From the earliest days the TUC was concerned about the administration of the WFTU and unhappy with the choice of Louis Saillant as General Secretary.³ Saillant combined his WFTU work with the secretaryship of the French Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT). Though lacking international trade union experience, he enjoyed the backing of the Soviet All Union Central Council of Trade Unions (AUCCTU) and indeed had arrived at the founding conference of the Federation from Moscow with the Soviet delegation. The TUC regarded him as irresponsible. He was a poor administrator, frequently absent from his office, and was also apt to proclaim policy on sensitive matters without authorization. Under his direction, the secretariat also contained many staff appointed on the basis of political patronage.⁴

However, the most important concern of the TUC was that from 1946 literature emanating from WFTU headquarters offered a partisan view of the world with plentiful criticism of the western nations but no equivalent treatment of the Soviet bloc. The official in charge of publications was a Russian and all- important releases had to be translated into Russian first before being rendered into the other official languages. May Day messages of a contentious nature were issued without full consultation with the Executive Board. In addition, WFTU delegations abroad were used as a vehicle for Communist members to engage in pro-Soviet propaganda and to identify the Federation with Communist unions in the places they visited. Such intrusion of factional politics in the work of the important 1947 mission to Japan left the members unable to concur on what they had actually seen. After a year of wrangling no agreed report could be issued.⁵

When Arthur Deakin succeeded Citrine as President in 1946 he was ready suspicious of the Soviet tendency to dominate the organization but still believed he could act as a restraining influence.⁶ The TUC view was that no effort should be spared to make the WFTU succeed. Not until 1947 were open criticisms made of its administration, the factor bringing them to the fore being the announcement of the offer of Marshall Aid in June. In October the Cominform laid down a firm line against Marshall Aid and a month later the secretary of the AUCCTU announced that it would press for the WFTU to become a militant instrument of this line, demanding in particular the removal of 'weak and reformist leaders'. This was an obvious reference to Deakin.⁷ There was no WFTU policy on Marshall Aid, but Communist factional control of the Federation's Bulletin enabled it to be used overwhelmingly as a vehicle for denouncing the proposal along with those trade union centres that were thought likely to support it. This attack on the reformist leaders of the WFTU was sustained over several months from the end of 1947 during which Saillant and the AUCCTU blocked any formal discussion of the Marshall proposal inside the WFTU.⁸

After making every effort to arrange for such a discussion within the Federation, the TUC bowed to European trade union pressure and took the initiative in convening in March 1948 a European Recovery Plan Conference outside the WFTU structure. The aim of the conference was to declare support for Marshall Aid in time to influence American Congressional debate. Some of the participants, notably the American Federation of Labour (AFL) which was not a member of the WFTU, envisaged this conference as the launch pad for a proposed new trade union international to rival the WFTU. But that was not the TUC's intention, and for a year following this conference the British trade union leadership resisted all pressures to establish a breakaway organization. In particular, and contrary to the claims of Communists, there was no conspiring with the unaffiliated AFL to bring about a schism.⁹ Although the WFTU's future prospects were not bright, the TUC leadership believed they had to persevere with it. It was necessary at least to demonstrate to their own membership that they had sincerely tried to make succeed. The TUC was well aware that a split might eventually be unavoidable, and in that case, if it were to carry with it other centres, it would need to be seen to have behaved in a thoroughly constitutional manner. If there were to be a split, it was firm in the view that it would have to be on a trade union issue such as relations with the ITS, rather than over a political disagreement such as that regarding Marshall Aid. In July 1948 Deakin was still publicly hopeful that a settlement on the crucial issue of WFTU links with the ITS could be reached and he had taken a firm line with the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF), warning them that he would disaffiliate the Transport and General Workers' Union (TGWU) if the ITF did not go into the WFTU.

However, by September 1948 three years of talks over the ITS issue had not led to a compromise between the Secretariats and the AUCCTU representatives on the WFTU negotiating team. Failure to integrate the ITS meant that the WFTU would be bereft of the means to operate industrially and would remain little more than a 'political' international. This did not accord with the TUC's interest in practical trade union work.

At the TUC congress that month a motion in the name of the Bakers anp Tobacco Workers urged resistance to efforts to destroy the unity of the WFTU. In refusing a General Council request to withdraw the motion, the movers misjudged their strength and the mood of congress and gave Deakin the opportunity to go on the offensive. He painted a damning picture of the Federation and maintained that there had been little or no agreement within it. Most of his energy as President had been directed simply at preserving the organization as a going concern and he now considered that he was wasting his time. The WFTU, Deakin declared, was rapidly becoming nothing more than another instrument for the furthering of Soviet policy. His speech earned a rousing ovation and the motion was overwhelmingly defeated.¹⁰

Buoyed by the support of congress, the General Council now proposed that the WFTU suspend activities while its principal affiliates attempted to find a modus vivendi. The AUCCTU rejected this suggestion and the long anticipated split took place at the Executive Board in January 1949 following stalemate on whether or not to recommend suspension to the next WFTU congress. In justifying its withdrawal, the TUC pointed to the way ideological differences had undermined goodwill, preventing compromise within the organization.¹¹ The pressures of the Cold War had exacerbated fundamental differences between organizations for whom trade unionism meant quite different things. This was the essence of the message that TUC Chairman, Herbert Bullock, brought to the founding conference of the ICFTU ten months later when he warned the gathering against trying to embrace irreconcilable objectives and aims and confusing industrial with political objectives.¹²

The ICFTU and the issue of links with Communist organizations

The TUC was as prominent in launching the ICFTU.as it had been in setting up the WFTU. Its General Secretary, Vincent Tewson acted as the secretary to the preparatory committee, while the TUC hosted the founding conference and supplied secretarial services until the new international was able to function independently. Although some accounts suggest that the ICFTU was largely the creature of the American trade unions, the TUC had just as big an influence in defining its aims and organizational structure. Indeed the AFL was later to complain over the dogged way in which the British had fought to exert influence in the preparatory committee.¹³ At the heart of ICFTU philosophy was the concept of 'free' trade unionism - unions free from political or employer domination and free to represent the interests of their membership. It was strongly anti-Communist, indeed unwaveringly against all forms of totalitarianism. An important part of the story of the TUC's membership of the ICFTU over the next twenty-five years concerns the way in which it gradually manoeuvred to extricate itself from what it came to regard as the Confederation's excessively inflexible stance on contacts with Communist organizations. There was always a strand in ICFTU thinking that the relative advantages of free trade unionism over the Communist variety would be reflected in the tangible benefits it secured for its members. Many, including the mainstream TUC leadership, believed that the battle against Communism would be won through this demonstration effect. On this point the Americans in the AFL disagreed. They believed in the need to wage a more direct, ideological struggle against Communism.

The AFL had never forgiven the TUC for joining the 'Communist’ WFTU, and in the years ahead would regularly complain that the TUC was soft on Communism. A pillar of the TUC right such as Arthur Deakin would be accused of behaving like a 'Bevanite'. And the Americans spoke of Vincent Tewson's 'appeasement' when, in the course of his presidential address to the 1953 ICFTU congress, he warned against sabotaging by word or deed the possibility of negotiations between East and West. The point was that the congress followed only a matter of weeks after the Berlin uprising, and the AFL believed the speech should have been used to denounce the action of the Soviet government in suppressing this. Between two leaderships which prided themselves on their anti-Communism, there was a measurable difference in the degree of animosity shown towards their ideological opponents. And while the TUC and AFL had the longest established fraternal links of any national trade union centres, their relationship was far from warm. Barely concealed anti-Americanism was widespread among members of the TUC General Council. For its part the AFL interpreted this as an expression of the TUC's sense of superiority.¹⁴

The issue of contacts with the dissident Communist unions in Yugoslavia was a bone of contention within the ICFTU almost from the moment that their trade union centre was expelled from the WFTU in April 1950. The following year the TUC was, along with other ICFTU affiliates, represented at their congress and this caused friction with the AFL in the ICFTU Executive Board. Tewson, as ICFTU President, used his position to prevent a vote on an American motion denouncing the lack of free trade unions in Yugoslavia. He argued the pragmatic case for maintaining a line of contact to the Yugoslavs, whereas the AFL suspected that the TUC was involved in preliminary manoeuvres to secure their affiliation to the ICFTU.¹⁵ Partly as a result of this episode, the AFL boycotted the ICFTU for the next twelve a months.

This was the first instance of ICFTU affiliates dealing bilaterally with Communist centre. For many years, the Yugoslav trade union confederation was the only Communist organization with which the TUC would have any truck. Contacts with the WFTU itself were naturally out of the question, and it would be some years before the TUC considered bilateral contacts with individual national union centres that were affiliated to the WFTU. After Stalin's death the AUCCTU launched a vigorous campaign in 1954 to woo western unions and invited the TUC to its congress. This was promptly rejected. But in the following years, in what came to be seen as a 'charm offensive', invitations were regularly received from other Eastern European union centres. To counter this, the ICFTU congress adopted a policy of rejecting all such overtures, and the TUC adapted the policy by issuing statement, The TUC and Communism, which warned affiliates against study visits to the Soviet bloc since they risked providing their hosts with a propaganda coup.¹⁶

However, the TUC had no power to block such contacts when undertaken by its own affiliates, and East-West visits involving individual British unions began to take place with increasing frequency. During the 1950s, Communist-backed motions in favour of contacts with the WFTU or national centres in Communist countries were also picking up increasing support at the TUC annual congress, though in the end they were always defeated. The AFL-CIO were alarmed by this trend and called for a more vigorous anti-Communist line within the ICFTU, but nothing practical could be done to enforce the Confederation's policy.¹⁷

The TUC line was to support cultural and scientific exchanges with Communist countries. At the same time it wanted to avoid giving any recognition to state- controlled unions. But Tewson insisted that national centres must be free to apply the ICFTU policy flexibly in light of their own circumstances. In the TUC's case, he recognized the difficulty of reconciling its 'no contacts' stance with its desire for government-level negotiations to end the Cold War. And in defence of the actions of TUC affiliates who had sent delegations to Soviet countries, he rationalized that some of them did engage in tough talking with their hosts on the defects of their socio-political system and their trade union record. Others, he pointed out, sought to nullify the dangerous effects of rank and file exchanges by providing leadership by officials whose job was to chaperon the party and ensure that the more inexperienced members were not manipulated or deceived by the Communists.¹⁸ Where the TUC was prepared to draw a line with its affiliates was over any attempt to establish multilateral relations with Communist unions that might lead to a permanent organization. Thus the TUC intervened and threatened the ETU with disciplinary proceedings when in 1956–7 it attempted to convene an international conference of electrical workers regardless of whether they were affiliated to the ICFTU or WFTU. ¹⁹

The problem of enforcing ICFTU policy persisted in the late 1950s and 1960s and other national centres began to experience similar difficulties in preventing contacts with the East. Some affiliates such as the Austrians and Finns visited the Soviet bloc in an attempt to demonstrate their neutrality. African centres travelled the same road in support of their countries' search for economic aid. From the late 1950s the German DGB, which was worried about the gap between policy and practice on this question, began to press the ICFTU for clearer guidelines. Could a distinction be made between informal study visits and formal representation at a congress? Was it meaningful to distinguish between contacts with, on the one hand, the Yugoslavs and on the other the rest of eastern Europe? The AFL-CIO warned of the dangers of seeking to legitimize visits in this way, but no refinement of the existing, unenforceable ICFTU policy was forthcoming.²⁰ The blanket line continued to be that all contacts with the Communists should be avoided.

With George Woodcock as General Secretary from 1960, signs of TUC restlessness under this policy increased. In 1961 the Soviet AUCCTU invited the TUC to the British Trade Fair in Moscow. The invitation was eventually turned down, but this time only after much deliberation.²¹ The following year, in successfully opposing a congress motion that called for negotiations between the ICFTU and the WFTU, Woodcock phrased his argument in such a way as to suggest that the TUC stood above the contest between these two internationals. 'I make no qualitative judgement about the two’, he said:

But it is the fact that they are completely incompatible. The time may come when we are all grown up, when systems modify themselves...when we might find a basis for the common action and understanding which I agree is the basis of trade union unity.²²

In 1963 the Yugoslav trade unions proposed the idea of an international conference to discuss economic development. The TUC were still wary of involvement in multilateral events of this nature and declined to participate, arguing that a more productive route would be to develop bilateral contacts.²³ But a clear indication that bilateral contacts extending beyond those with Yugoslavia were now becoming acceptable to the TUC came in 1964 when a congress motion calling for exchanges of study groups or trade union delegations between all countries was remitted to the General Council. It subsequently declined to give blanket approval to all visits, but considered the motion to be in accord with existing policy which took into account 'the broadening of attitudes in recent years’ ²⁴

In the context of the partial test ban treaty of 1963 and a modest easing in the arms race, the tendency to ignore the ICFTU policy increased. In private Woodcock conceded that the TUC would ultimately be prepared to exchange trade union visits with any trade union organization, be it in Spain or the USSR, provided that their meetings were devoid of political content, avoided matters of war and peace and confined themselves to practical trade union questions. In practice he also indicated that he did not subscribe to TUC orthodoxy about how the split with the WFTU had come about, with all responsibility levelled at the Communists.²⁵

When the printing trades ITS, the International Graphical Federation (IGF) accepted into membership the French CGT bookworkers' union in 1965 without first requiring it to leave the WFTU fold, the ICFTU severed relations with the wayward ITS. With British printing unions prominent among the membership of the IGF and John Bonfield of the National Graphical Association (NGA) its President, the TUC backed the Federation and declined to support the ICFTU measure. Woodcock complained that the Confederation was introducing politics into a situation that was simply a product of industrial developments. The IGF, he insisted, was merely trying to strengthen its organization in the face of the internationalization of publishing and printing by the employers. He later reported to the TUC International Committee that there had been little response to his efforts to secure a discussion of the case on its merits. As a consequence the ICFTU suffered from the rigidity of its own decisions.²⁶

Reflecting on the significance of this development in the ICFTU, the TUC International Committee noted that the attitudes that had brought the ICFTU into existence had produced the unfortunate result that its activities had mainly been directed by political considerations. But given that the AFL-CIO seemed to be edging towards withdrawal from the Confederation precisely because it felt the political battle against the Communists was not being waged strongly enough, the International Committee expressed guarded hope that the departure of the Americans might permit some reversal of the present policy. Without the Americans it might at least be possible to develop an informal relationship with the trade union movements of the Communist countries. ²⁷

A sign that the TUC leadership were thinking in terms of a more independent policy line came at the 1965 annual congress. Faced with a motion critical of the ICFTU and calling for a redefinition of 'free' unionism and a 're-evaluation of international trade union unity', Woodcock stressed that he was not antagonistic to the intention of the motion but argued:

Unless there is common purpose, it is better sometimes not to have organizational unity and to work at a much lower level, to select the kind of things which you can talk about ... rather than to force yourself into a structure where ... you can have a rush job and then it breaks up. On the TUC we are thinking at the moment rather more in terms of diversity than increasing unity.²⁸

The future direction seemed to lie in a more modest range of international interests being pursued through more than one organization.

The gradual drift away from the ICFTU line was confirmed in 1966 when the TUC accepted for the first time an AUCCTU invitation to send a delegation to the Soviet Union. By now, with detente on the rise, there was extensive traffic between national union centres in East and West Europe and the TUC were simply joining the crowd. Woodcock defended this visit, arguing that a mere exchange of views or visits did not constitute a threat to free trade unionism. The TUC could not conceive of a world where nations and trade unions were indefinitely lined up against each other. A start had to be made somewhere, if for no other reason than to recognize the existence of the other side. He believed the TUC had something to teach and other things to learn from the Soviets. Such contacts did not constitute an organic link, and matters discussed were carefully circumscribed with political questions excluded. And, however constrained the Soviet trade unions were, it had to be accepted that they were responsible for the day-to-day protection of workers' interests.²⁹

When in 1969 the AFL-CIO finally withdrew from the ICFTU, one of its underlying reasons for doing so was deep disillusionment at the behaviour of organizations such as the TUC in defying ICFTU policy on contacts with unions that were not 'free' in the accepted sense of the term and whose countries had a suspect record on human rights. The AFL-CIO's action now had two major consequences as far as the TUC was concerned. One was remove from the ICFTU debate the most forceful opponent of contacts with Communist organizations. The other was to weaken the ICFTU so much that it became wholly inadequate to the global tasks that it had set itself. From this point the TUC set off in the direction it had initially contemplated in 1965 - a less ambitious international policy pursued through various institutional channels, with most emphasis now placed on European regional organization.

The TUC in developing countries

During the years of TUC affiliation to the WFTU, little practical trade union work had been attempted, the Federation's focus being on international political developments in the early Cold War. The TUC's interests overseas concentrated on British colonial and ex-colonial territories where it placed heavy reliance on labour officers in the colonial civil service who were often former trade unionists appointed on its recommendation. It was the TUC's belief that such people were responsible for some of the most practical and lasting work in encouraging the growth of trade unionism and industrial relations structures. In matters of colonial trade unionism the TUC also enjoyed ready access to government in Whitehall through its membership of the Colonial Labour Advisory Committee and the Colonial Economic Development Council.³⁰

From 1949, however, the TUC began to place more emphasis on direct work abroad among colonial labour movements. In the first instance most attention was focused on British territories in the West Indies. In that year the TUC also convened the first annual Commonwealth Trade Union Conference in Geneva, timed to coincide with the International Labour Conference of the ILO. These meetings were chaired by a senior member of the TUC International Committee and for the most part discussed practical trade union topics chosen by the TUC. The format was intentionally informal, the belief being that to formalize it would be counter-productive, signalling that the TUC was organizing a caucus within the ICFTU. Initially the conferences were attended by representatives of the old white Commonwealth but by the mid-1950s participation regularly involved 30–40 delegates from perhaps 15 territories - about one half of the Commonwealth countries having trade union movements. The numbers involved were to grow further in the 1960s. These gatherings were regarded as a valuable means of maintaining contact between people sharing certain values and approaches to labour questions.

In 1950 the TUC instituted a policy of providing all British colonial trade union centres with basic office equipment and a library of union literature. By the mid-1950s, over 30 centres had been equipped in this way. Correspondence courses to train colonial union officials were instituted by the TUC in 1952. Training and education in Britain was provided for a small number of more senior officials, a TUC-financed Colonial Scholar spending six months in Britain every year, with a number of others visiting on shorter TUC-sponsored study visits. From 1955 the TUC also published a monthly paper Trade Union News for Overseas. As a leading affiliate of the ICFTU, the TUC played a key role in the development of its policies and programmes in British territories. The ICFTU's first forays in Africa were two missions, in 1951 and 1952 respectively, led by Fred Dalley, a retired Assistant Secretary of the Railway Clerks' Association and G.H. Bagnall, former General Secretary of the Dyers and Bleachers' Union. Two of the first three ICFTU field representatives in Africa were British, approved by the TUC. Congress played a full part in shaping the ICFTU's policy on national independence in 1952, and throughout most of the 1950s the TUC was comfortable with ICFTU work in this area which complemented its own activities. However, the British did not rely on the ICFTU, which was a new organization only beginning to cut its teeth. The TUC regarded itself as having more understanding of this field, and, both within and outside the confines of the ICFTU, the particular emphasis of its approach was to stress the practicalities of developing stable trade unionism at the base.³¹

For the British, the establishment of sound trade union structure and practice took priority over steps towards colonial independence. They preached the message that national independence was not the answer to all problems. It was important to focus on the intermediate stages before self-government during which the patient building of trade union structures and industrial relations practices was essential. It was an axiom of the TUC that you could not run a newly independent country if you could not run a union branch. This emphasis on the incremental, organic development of trade unionism at the base was not always well received by impatient nationalists, but the TUC was unwavering in its approach. The aim was not to create a trade union movement that would supply muscle for nationalist political movements but to enable concrete benefits to be won for workers in the here and now. The TUC was therefore very concerned that whereas there had been a relatively strong growth of trade union membership in some territories, there was often no comparable growth in the machinery for negotiation and consultation. Consequently considerable efforts were expended within the Colonial Labour Advisory Committee and in dealings with the Overseas Employers' Federation in nurturing the institutions of industrial relations.³² On numerous occasions the TUC sought a solution to particular industrial relations disputes in colonial territories through its contacts with the Overseas Employers' Federation in London. In 1954 Congress introduced a levy of twopence per member for a Colonial Development Fund which would finance an expanded programme of assistance to unions in British dependencies. By the mid-1950s the colonial division of the TUC's International Department claimed to have built up a body of knowledge on the trade union and industrial relations situation in thirty-five territories and was therefore in a position to offer advice to local unions. It was also keen to assist in organizing and training activities.³³ To a certain extent the TUC became a research and advice centre at the service of emerging trade union bodies abroad. In the latter part of the 1950s it was particularly concerned about the tendency for essential service legislation in colonial territories to be excessively restrictive regarding trade union activities and the right to strike. In this situation the TUC undertook a detailed examination of all legislation prior to making representations to the Colonial Office.³⁴

Beyond acting as a general resource for developing unions, the TUC provided assistance in other ways. Under the ILO constitution, dependent territories were allowed to attend its conferences with observer status, but in situations where no such colonial delegation was sent, the TUC would frequently add to its own delegation trade union representatives from dependent territories who had a particular interest in items on the ILO agenda. The British were ever keen to cultivate a role at the ILO for unions from dependencies and the concurrent annual Commonwealth Trade Union Conference provided a focus for such encouragement.

Assistance was also commonly provided by sending trade union advisers on visits of varying duration to help with practical problems on the spot. Thus in 1954 Len Murray was despatched to Trinidad to help the Seamen and Dockers' Union in negotiations and subsequently to assemble a case for arbitration. Will Lawther was sent to Northern Rhodesia for two months in 1957 to work with the African Mine Workers' Union. Jim Young, a former General Secretary of the Association of Engineering and Shipbuilding Dråughtsmen (AESD), spent several lengthy periods in Aden in the late 1950s and early 1960s working with the Aden TUC to help resolve its difficulties with the colonial administration. Various TUC representatives spent extensive periods in British Guiana in the 1950s and 1960s working to strengthen the unions. An official was also loaned to the trade union centre in Fiji to assist with an organizing drive. There were numerous such instances of direct TUC aid, always at the request of the overseas organization.

With a modest budget, rarely more than £10,000, the TUC would also give financial assistance in needy situations - to help employ a full-time general secretary for a few months, to cover the cost of office rent or a duplicator, or to help with the purchase of a motorcycle or a car for a union organizer. These donations usually amounted to no more than a few hundred pounds, and hardly ever as much as the £3,000 granted to the British Guiana trade unions in 1954-5 to help them in their bitter battle with Cheddi Jagan's political movement.³⁵

The TUC's stance on colonialism was to defend the record of the British government against generalized external attacks - arguing that since the War Britain had moved beyond colonialism - while using their influence with government to follow up any detailed criticism from trade unions in de- pendencies.³⁶ It intervened with the Colonial Office in the course of a number of bitter nationalist struggles, seeking the release of trade unionists detained for alleged terrorist activities in Kenya, Cyprus (where it was frequently vilified by the leadership of the Cyprus Confederation of Labour on whose behalf it was interceding), and Aden, where it also paid the cost of an Aрpeal Court case brought on behalf of the imprisoned leaders of the Aden TUC.

However, as nationalist and anti-colonial sentiment increased in the 1950s and 1960s, the tendency of the TUC to advise trade unionists in dependent territories that dramatic economic and social change could not come about overnight and that they had to learn to walk before they could run, often led to criticism of the British in international gatherings. Increasingly the TUC found itself challenged, not only by trade unionists from developing countries- also by the Americans and ICFTU officialdom.

African unions and relations with the AFL-CIO and ICFTU

Serious differences between the TUC on the one hand, and the AFL-CIO and the ICFTU on the other, over the best way to develop trade unionism in Africa emerged in the latter part of the 1950s as the movement for national independence gained pace. With the establishment of an Organizing Department in 1956 and an increase in the budget for this activity, the ICFTU began to plan for a more prominent role in trade union developmental work Africa. The AFL-CIO, which had identified itself as a strong supporter of anti- colonialism, also impressed on the Confederation the importance moving more swiftly in Africa. For the Americans, the urgent need for trade union organization arose from their fear that the continent might soon fall to Communism. However, the AFL-CIO lacked confidence in the ICFTU as bulwark against Communism and was also keen to launch its own independent programme of activities in Africa.

An AFL-CIO representative had toured East Africa early in 1957 and was widely rumoured to have offered financial assistance to the Tanganyika trade African unions. Subsequently the AFL-CIO agreed a $50,000 programme to train African union leaders in the United States, and in autumn 1957 their representative returned to East Africa to select candidates for training. This American interference in British colonial territories caused deep resentment in the TUC and nearly sparked off a diplomatic incident when the Colonial Office seriously considered expelling the representative.³⁷

A settlement to the problem of independent activities by the AFL-CIO was negotiated at a meeting of American, British and German union leaders with ICFTU officials during the AFL-CIO convention in Atlantic City in December. The Americans agreed to cease independent activities in favour of ICFTU programmes. In particular the ICFTU would take over responsibility for training African trade union leaders at a centre to be established in Africa. However, the TUC refused to underpin the Atlantic City accord by agreeing that all its activities in African would also be conducted under the aegis of the ICFTU and with its overseas representatives carrying ICFTU credentials. The TUC position was that it had a special responsibility for trade union work in British dependencies, and that, with decades experience of such activities, it was in a position to give practical help which others could not. Vincent Tewson argued that the TUC had no ‘independent programmes’ of the type operated by the AFL-CIO and only responded to specific requests for assistance from individual territories. ³⁸

In a strained atmosphere, the TUC's Colonial Advisory Committee met ICFTU General Secretary J.H. Oldenbroek and Director of Organization Charles Millard in February 1958 to thrash out this matter.³⁹ The ICFTU officials insisted that the Confederation should be responsible for all international projects. They also claimed that the British overestimated their popularity in Africa and the desire of the colonial unions to receive help from the TUC. But senior members of the General Council were adamant that British dependencies in Africa were primarily the TUC's responsibility. Bill Carron of the Amalgamated Engineering Union (AEU) argued that the ICFTU must not interfere in this relationship. And while the TUC were willing to keep the Confederation informed of their projects in Africa, Frank Cousins of the TGWU insisted that no procedure for consultation must be allowed to hold up the urgent task of rendering assistance in the continent.⁴⁰

The ICFTU were forced to accept this arrangement, though warning that it might give the AFL-CIO an excuse for resuming independent activities. In the eyes of the ICFTU, the TUC were seeking to apply double standards, and their refusal to surrender autonomy in Africa would eventually rob the international body of any meaning or importance.⁴¹

The TUC also had misgivings about the new African training centre which was an integral part of the Atlantic City settlement. The ICFTU proposed to locate this in the Ugandan capital of Kampala, but Vincent Tewson believed that the African movement would be better served by having itinerant instructors who would conduct courses on the spot in different territories. The TUC feared that the college would become a centre for political propaganda promoting Pan- Africanism. Also, with the AFL-CIO having a stake in the college, it would establish a base for Americans 'prancing around in Africa'. Because it was a product of the Atlantic City accord, the TUC found it difficult to oppose the Kampala College project, but acceptance of it was no more than grudging.⁴²

Still dissatisfied with the pace of trade union development in Africa, and judging the continent to be at a dangerous turning point politically, in February 1959 the AFL-CIO offered to make available to the ICFTU the assistance of one or two black American union representatives who would be prepared to spend several months in Africa. Diplomatically, the ICFTU sidestepped the offer, but the TUC were now greatly exercised, not only about the prospect of an increasing American presence in Africa but also the spread of ICFTU projects. In a series of meetings of the TUC International and Colonial Advisory Committees in 1959 and in position papers adopted by them, the TUC's growing differences with the Americans and the ICFTU secretariat were now highlighted.⁴³

The basic difference was that the TUC emphasized the importance of building unionism up from the base - concentrating on establishing branch organization, the effective control of finances, developing industrial relations machinery and servicing members. In contrast, the ICFTU and the AFL-CIO focused their energy on supporting national trade union centres. The TUC recognized that the task of creating African trade union solidarity would take decades whereas the AFL- CIO believed that the future of African trade unionism and politics was likely to be decided in a much shorter timeframe. This divergence reflected the political emphasis of the Americans and the ICFTU whose aim was to pre-empt the WFTU establishing a bridgehead in Africa. In so doing they were securing the affiliation of national labour movements as bastions of anti-Communism. The TUC, on the other hand, considered that Communism was not the real threat in Africa. Indeed, more dangerous was the prospect of national union centres falling under the domination of governments and nationalist political movements as had already happened in Ghana. This led the TUC to complain of the 'fundamental unsoundness of the AFL-CIO approach to the problem of trade AFL-CIO approach to the problem of trade union organization.’ ⁴⁴

The TUC warned against the danger of national centres being artificially stimulated by outside financing and thereby acquiring a false status that was not justified either by a dues-paying membership or viable union structure at the base. National centres created in this way in Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Uganda, Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia were, the TUC claimed, ineffective while the Ghana TUC and the Kenya Federation of Labour (KFL), both having benefited from extensive assistance from the ICFTU and the AFL-CIO, were outstanding examples of undemocratic and manipulated organizations. The KFL had for years evaded its obligation to pay dues to the ICFTU, and organizations like this, the British claimed, did not deserve to belong to the Confederation. Within the TUC, the KFL General Secretary Tom Mboya was widely regarded as an archetypal nationalist politician masquerading as a trade union leader. Their claim was that a form of 'licensed corruption' set in when real African union leaders were unable to compete with artificially created ones whose strength derived from outside financing.

Beyond this, the TUC complained of the 'black racialism' at the core the rapidly spreading Pan-African movement which had nothing to offer trade unionism. The AFL-CIO and the ICFTU had both given indirect support to this by continuing to make negative attacks on African colonialism. Yet the TUC believed it was wrong to suggest that the colonial governments were the enemy of the trade unions. The TUC defended their record in this field. There were no British dependencies whose workers were not legally free to organize, and frequently the recognition of trade unions was stimulated by British firms and employers' associations in search of a body with which to negotiate. Only where the Colonial Office had ceased to have influence, as in Ghana, were trade union freedoms at risk. Overall the TUC complained that the Americans and the ICFTU were insufficiently frank in pointing out to African trade unionists that their real problem was their lack of unity, leadership and financial integrity.

The TUC accepted that there was more work to be done on behalf of African trade unionism than could be undertaken by the TUC, AFL-CIO and ICFTU put together. The tasks would necessarily have to be shared. What was needed, therefore, was agreement on basic principles of trade union work and a division of spheres of influence. The British obviously felt they should take the lead role in their dependent territories, with the Americans and other mature national centres collaborating elsewhere under the auspices of the ICFTU. Under such an arrangement, the TUC envisaged the ICFTU operating essentially as a 'clearing house' for African requests for assistance, rather than having a direct role in organizing.⁴⁵

Throughout 1959 the TUC sought to arrange a top-level meeting with the AFL- CIO and ICFTU to agree such an approach, but without success. The AFL-CIO leadership had other fish to fry and were busy manoeuvring to replace the top leadership of the ICFTU with people more malleable than Oldenbroek and Millard.

The 1960s: deteriorating relations with the ICFTU

Until their disagreement over policy in Africa, the TUC had enjoyed very good relations with the ICFTU. Vincent Tewson had probably played a bigger role in the Confederation than any other national union leader during the 1950s and he had developed a close understanding with General Secretary Oldenbroek. Both men retired in 1960 after which TUC commitment to the ICFTU declined steadily under Tewson's successor George Woodcock. This trend had its roots in General Council disenchantment with ICFTU policy in Africa. But now the critique widened, influenced by Woodcock's perception of ICFTU inefficiency under its new General Secretary, Omer Becu.⁴⁶ Quite simply, Woodcock regarded the Confederation as an organization that squandered money on ill thought-out projects, not least of which was the recent decision to erect at considerable expense a permanent building to house the Kampala College.⁴⁷

From the outset he was opposed to the Confederation's heavy dependence on voluntary financial contributions by affiliates which furnished three-quarters of its income. Large numbers of poor affiliates accounting for about a quarter of total membership were unable to afford more than a fraction of standard fees, income from which was barely enough to sustain the cost of headquarters administration. To finance its wider programme in the field, the ICFTU therefore relied on the half-dozen largest centres subscribing to an International Solidarity Fund (ISF) on a triennial basis. The TUC had initially been the largest benefactor, contributing over $1.4 million between 1958 and 1960, a third of the total sum collected.⁴⁸

Control of the Solidarity Fund was by a committee independent of the regular ICFTU governing structures, with the result that there was no overall budgeting exercise in the Confederation and no considered, long-term planning of projects. Tewson had been the original chair of the ISF Committee during which period TUC criticisms of spending decisions had been muted. But Woodcock was less attached to the ICFTU than his predecessor. He was much more critical of the Secretariat for its lack of rigour in costing and monitoring activities funded by the ISF and also for what he saw as a lazy assumption that funds would always materialise from ad hoc appeals retrospectively to cover costs that had already been incurred.⁴⁹ Much of his criticism focused specifically on assistance to Africa which received nearly a third of all ICFTU spending. The beneficiaries were the national centres rather than the local unions, and he argued that this top-down approach to organizing was unlikely to produce independent unions capable of being sustained by dues-paying membership. Woodcock strongly condemned policies which resulted in trade union leaders such as Mboya becoming 'permanent pensioners of the ICFTU'.⁵⁰

In the face of this, the TUC declined to contribute further to the ISF when was asked for a donation of $2 million for the period 1961-4. Attending his first ICFTU Executive Board meeting in December 1960, Woodcock gave the impression that the TUC had only just learned of the $2m figure, though in actual fact Tewson had been party to the original decision to set the target. However, Woodcock well understood the mood of the TUC General Council and made it clear that there was no chance of their agreeing to it. The TUC now withdrew from membership of the ISF Committee.⁵¹

Over the next three years Woodcock engaged in a sustained critique of the ICFTU, gradually extending his range of targets. Misgivings about the reliance on unpredictable, one-off donations for what needed to be a long-term development programme widened into general criticism of the ICFTU leadership and its methods, the lack of coherence in its policies and operations, and the tendency to engage in ambitious work for which it had little compеtence. The weakness of the Secretariat, the absence of a powerful finance and general purposes committee to give the organization direction, an over-large Executive Board with membership too diverse to make firm decisions, and the consequent absence of clear, long-term strategy and purpose were the subject of repeated interventions by Woodcock at Executive Board meetings in the first half of the 1960s.

The TUC position gradually won the support of other affiliates and in 1964 an accommodation was reached, with the TUC agreeing to contribute to the ISF on a scaled-down but regular annual basis over an indefinite period. All was conditional on other affiliates also being prepared to facilitate the more effective long-term planning and financing of projects. It meant that the ICFTU would have to operate with smaller funds, but Woodcock contended that some past expenditure had corrupted and even prevented growth of trade unions. He maintained that the need to work within a tighter budget would be a useful discipline for the Confederation. As a comparatively inexperienced organization, it needed to understand that it was not capable of dealing with all the problems of trade unionism in every part of the world. ⁵²

At this point the AFL-CIO began to join in the attack on the ICFTU in a way that was even more damaging than the TUC's criticism. The ICFTU's African policy that the Americans had strongly backed was clearly failing. Pan-Africanism had taken a hold and many of the national centres that the ICFTU had helped were now turning against it and had been subordinated to governments in an increasing number of one-party states. The AFL-CIO saw its future role in Africa being better served by a recently created African-American Labor Centre which, like the American Institute for Free Labour Development in Latin America, had been launched with generous US government funding. It cut back drastically on its contributions to the ISF and by 1965 it seemed that the Americans might soon pull out of the Confederation altogether.

With the ICFTU close to paralysis as a result of uncertainty over its future, and activities in developing countries curtailed for lack of funds, the TUC began to reflect on deeper problems associated with the Confederation - indeed the fundamental problems of making any international organization work. An important factor was the TUC's perception of a lack of goodwill, especially between western and third world centres. Woodcock suggested that the range of ICFTU affiliates was too wide to provide the basis of a compact organization able to address itself effectively to trade union questions.⁵³ This had a bearing on finance and policy.

Given the diverse interests of unions from countries at different levels of economic development, it was difficult if not impossible to construct within the Confederation a system of dues payment and voting that did not give offence to one or another section of the membership. Woodcock complained that within the Executive Board it was impossible to question spending proposals, even mildly, without it being inferred that the intention was to stand in the way of progress:

The fundamental deficiency of the ICFTU was that it provided no machinery for compromise since the discussion in the Executive Board served only to stimulate antagonism if any measure of restraint were proposed on trade union grounds. ⁵⁴

Returning to the theme of the ICFTU as an over-ambitious body, the TUC believed that the Confederation should attempt less in developing countries, where three-quarters of expenditure was directed, while at the same time devolving more responsibility for field programmes to the ITS and the mature national centres.

The TUC also held the view that more decentralization of activity was necessary within the ICFTU, with greater initiative left to its regional structures. These, it felt, were better equipped to develop a unanimity of purpose among unions within a more limited geographical framework.⁵⁵ This linked in with another important TUC theme that was beginning to find expression: the ICFTU ought to focus more on international matters that had a bearing the domestic concerns of the larger affiliates in America, Britain Germany, whose role hitherto had been restricted to giving aid to the poorer centres. In future it wanted these larger centres to derive benefits from ICFTU membership and not simply be seen as distributors of largesse. In following such a course, the Confederation would necessarily have to emphasize more the role of its American hemispheric and European regional structures. At the TUC's annual congress in 1965 Woodcock had already floated the idea of strengthening the European Regional Organization. All of this implied a moderation of the earlier ambitious global project for free trade union development, with the ICFTU reduced to playing a consultative and coordinating role.

The TUC was therefore looking for radical reform of the ICFTU or, it judged, the Confederation would have to be abandoned. Yet there were few grounds for optimism that change would come about, and the TUC International Committee minuted:

If the question arose of starting afresh the TUC - taking experience as a starting point - would perhaps not be in favour of establishing an organization such as the ICFTU with its present functions, nor disposed to accept that the somewhat heterogeneous political attitudes of major ICFTU affiliates provide a satisfactory basis for common and large-scale trade union operations directed towards developing countries.⁵⁶

Three years later, these doubts about the ICFTU's future viability were realized when the AFL-CIO finally disaffiliated. It left the Confederation in financial crisis and confirmed the TUC in its belief that the immediate way forward was to concentrate its international effort in a European regional grouping.

Conclusion

The TUC's post-war international policy was characterized by pragmatism and an emphasis on the promotion of practical trade unionism. Committed initially to building a global movement, experience of the inner workings of both WFTU and ICFTU had taught it to be cautious about what could be achieved at this level. Over time its approach became, if not less altruistic, at least more calculating and more inward looking as it focused on international activities in a European context that were considered more likely to produce tangible benefits for British trade unions. The post-war period began with the TUC affiliated to the WFTU, hoping that it would succeed as a genuine trade union international, but wary over the possibility that fundamental ideological differences would undermine unity. Such differences arose over the Marshall Plan, and from late 1947 Communist factional influence in the organization, which had existed from the outset, destroyed any remaining goodwill. Equally the AUCCTU's determination to bring the autonomous ITS under the disciplinary control of the WFTU killed off all hope that the movement might operate effectively on basic industrial issues. On balance the TUC had every justification for pulling out.

Yet it was the practical side of the TUC that caused it to differ with the AFL-CIO in the ICFTU over the question of contacts with Communist organizations. By the mid-1960s the TUC was well on the way to turning full circle as it moved gradually to restoring the link with the Eastern bloc unions whose policies in the late 1940s had caused it to abandon the WFTU. Anti-Communists to a man though they were, the TUC's leading spokesmen in international affairs in the 1950s and 1960s - Deakin, Tewson, Alfred Roberts, Charles Geddes, Tom Yates and Fred Hayday - recognized that an ideological crusade against Communism must not obstruct, or become a substitute for, the regular practice of trade unionism. All of them had to contend with Communists among the membership of their own unions and had learned to be nimble in their handling of domestic union politics. One manifestation of this was their acceptance of the need for flexibility in applying the policy of 'no contacts' with Communist organizations abroad.

At first the TUC approach had been to support the spirit of the ICFTU policy, advising affiliates against liaison with Communist groups in other countries, while recognizing that individual unions could not be disciplined on this matter. Over a decade and a half, and especially under the influence of the Soviet 'charm offensive' from 1954 and the slight softening of the face of Communism under Khrushchev, the TUC's approach became more agnostic and they were increasingly prepared to condone their affiliates’ breaches of ICFTU policy. As calls for rapprochement with Eastern bloc trade unions grew louder, and with the General Council and International Committee more left wing in membership from the 1960s, ostcontact came to be seen, not so much as something to condone but as a strategy to be embraced and pursued with vigour.

In assistance to colonial and ex-colonial union movements, the TUC demonstrated in the clearest manner its own distinct approach to international affairs. It stressed the importance of the routine, unspectacular side of trade union activity: building solid foundations of membership at the base; sound financial structures rooted in the regular habit of dues payment; education and training for practical leadership; the creation of basic industrial relations structures and the importance of negotiating and, where necessary, compromising in the interests of achieving tangible if piecemeal gains. Indeed the TUC was accused by some (including Americans who shared their basic approach to economic trade unionism) of failing to recognize that this seemingly unhurried 'British' approach to building African unions gradually over an extended time-frame failed to take into account that here was a continent in turmoil, whose people, engaged in struggles for independence, were already on the move. In such situations the need was, perhaps, to organize workers speedily by building the movement from the top down. Yet the TUC would not compromise on this point and it became a major factor in its loss of confidence in the ICFTU in the early 1960s.

The bruising internal fight for a more rationally organized ICFTU that Woodcock waged from 1960 to 1964 was justified and was beginning to pay dividends with beneficial changes that might have led to a more productive phase of work. However at that point the AFL-CIO began to cut its losses as far as the ICFTU was concerned and thereby deprived the ICFTU of vital financial resources.

The TUC's gradual shift to a more independent approach to international affairs using a variety of institutional channels that was first hinted at by Woodcock in 1965 was probably a sensible accommodation to outside changes. The ICFTU was in a parlous state following the AFL-CIO withdrawal, and the means to turn it around were beyond the capacity of a single centre such as the TUC. The British leadership did make a genuine effort to keep the Americans in the ICFTU fold, but once they had gone their own way it was necessary to re-focus priorities. European level trade union organization, with a more flexible approach to Communist union organization, was now accepted as the main priority.

I wish to acknowledge generous financial assistance from the Lipman-Miliband Trust and the British Academy which enabled me to undertake the research for this project.