International Secretariat of National Trade Union Centres

Founding members of the new International Secretariat were the German, French, British, Belgian, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian and Finnish trade union centres.

The French Confédération générale du travail (CGT) adhered to the syndicalist line and harshly criticized the lack of independent political advocacy of ISNTUC.

[4] But there was also a third category of organizations in the ISNTUC apart from the syndicalists and Social Democrats, namely politically non-aligned neutral union centres, like the American Federation of Labor and the British GFTU.

Whilst the German unions were unwilling to accept any real changes in the character of the organization, they were able to accommodate the CGT and AFL in symbolic gestures.

At the eve of the First World War, the IFTU secretariat in Germany had 12 full-time employees (4 British, 4 Swiss, 2 Germans, 1 American and 1 Danish).

In July 1916 a trade union conference was held in Leeds, which decided to set up a Correspondence Office in Paris, under the supervision of Léon Jouhaux.