International Secretariat of Trade Unions

an international association of national trade union organizations that existed from 1903 to 1914 (in 1913 it was renamed the International Federation of Trade Unions). Its activities, guided by right-wing leaders of the union movement such as K. Legien, were limited primarily to the collection of information and the review of certain organizational questions having to do with maintaining communications between the union movements of different countries. With the outbreak of World War I the association virtually ceased to exist. The Amsterdam International of Trade Unions, founded in July 1919, was based on what was left of the association.