The inner strength of the international trade union movement. A comparison of the free trade union movement in Europe and the American continent between 1949 and 1969.

This research focuses on the functions of (post-Second World War) international trade union organisations and their appeal to trade union leaders: what where the arguments trade union leaders put forward to create and maintain supra-national trade union organisations? Following the arguments of scholars such as (among others) Gary Busch, Victor Silverman, and Richard Hyman I argue that the trade union working at the international level differs greatly from that of trade unions at the national. International workers’ organisations fulfilled a different function: whereas the national (and local) unions concentrated on short-term industrial-economic issues, the international organisations focused particularly on long-term (often abstract) political-diplomatic activities.
By means of a systematic comparison of two cases, i.e. the European Regional Organisation (ERO) and the Inter-American Regional Workers’ Organisation (ORIT - Spanish acronym), I intend to analyse the logic and consistency of the ‘labour-diplomacy’ hypothesis.