It was formed in response to the growth of employment in the oil industry, and was initially named the International Federation of Petroleum Workers.
Most of its founder members had previously been affiliated to the International Federation of Industrial Organisations and General Workers' Unions (IFF).
[1][2] The secretariat was based in Denver, and was the only global union federation to have headquarters outside Europe.
This brought it into conflict with the IFF, which renamed itself as the "International Federation of Chemical and General Workers' Unions" (ICF), and the ICFTU suspended grants to both organisations.
Faced with a loss of prestige, it discussed a potential merger with the ICF, but this did not occur, and it dissolved in 1976.