History of Myanmar's labour movement (46/505)

This post presents page 46 of The History of the Myanmar Labour Movement by Thakin Lwin (Bagan Books, 1968).

Vocabulary:

ကူးသန်းရောင်းဝယ်ရေး ။ commerce

Translation:

...896 representatives from a total of 23 countries attended [the Copenhagen Congress]. Later on, that international association was called the Berne International.

International Federation of Trade Unions

Outside the permanent international labour federation, all trade labour federations, after forming in many countries, were still within the International Trade Secretariat. Even by 1900, there had been formed and increased up to a total of 27 trade federations. In 1889, tanners established the first trade federation in world labour history. Although the aforementioned trade federations' headquarters opened in Germany, metal work and textile work federations opened their headquarters in London, England, and the commerce workers federation opened its headquarters in Holland. From among the aforementioned trade federations, the most powerful was the transport trade federation, which included about 5 1/2 million union member from 47 countries, and other federations of timber work and post and telegraph civil servants were formed. From that time until 1913, the population of labour union members assembled in all countries in the whole world was approximately 15 million, and in 1920 [the number of union members] increased to 45 million.

Representatives from each and every international trade federation held their first meeting in 1900 in Copenhagen and after discussing the problem of forming an international federation of trade unions established the International Federation of Trade Unions at the Zurich Congress in 1913. If that federation is compared with federations that had been previously formed, not only was the formation [of the federation] based on labour unions, but is was also the most powerful [federation of labour unions.]