Labor's Second Front: The Foreign Policy of the American and British Trade Union Movements during the Second World War

Abstract

According to the literature on trade union internationalism, the identification of national trade unions with their nation state, so that their international activities are incorporated into the foreign policy pursued by the state and serve primarily to promote state interests, is a generally accepted incentive for trade unions to engage in international politics.1 In particular cases, however, it is also true that trade unions do not develop international cooperation for political reasons. Circumstances can therefore arise in which national trade unions that are loyal to their national state end up in a situation whereby the national state develops a foreign policy that is in conflict with the trade union's fundamental political convictions. What line will the trade union follow in such an event: national interest or trade union policy? Furthermore, what are the reasons for opting for one or the other, or, in other words, what is the strategic purpose behind the foreign policy of this trade union movement?