Trade Unions

Abstract

There is no trade union organisation with a membership consisting solely of E.E.C. member-states but in February 1973 the European Trade Union Confederation was formed by trade unionists in fifteen Western European countries to deal with questions of interest to European working people arising inside and outside the E.E.C. All the founding organisations were I.C.F.T.U. affiliates but subsequently they accepted into membership European W.C.L. affiliates, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and the Italian Communist trade union centre (C.G.I.L.). The membership in 1975 exceeds 36 million from thirty centres in seventeen countries. Membership consisted of the following countries: Austria, Belgium, Britain, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Irish Republic, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and West Germany.