The International Secretariat of National Trade Union…
August 1901 CE
The idea to build an international trade union structure had been a proposal of the Danish union president Jens Jensen.
In 1900 the British General Federation of Trade Unions leader Isaac Mitchell had supported the idea, while the leader of the German Generalkommission der Gewerkschaften Deutschlands (which has one million members) Carl Legien had pledged to provide financial and administrative support to the new international organization.
Parallel to the ISNTUC are various International Trade Secretariats, most of them based in Germany and, like the ISNTUC, dependent on support from the German unions.