The Free Luxembourger Workers' Union ( lb, Freie Lëtzebuerger Arbechterverband, abbreviated 'FLA') was a national trade union centre in

Luxembourg Luxembourg ( ; lb, Lëtzebuerg ; french: link=no, Luxembourg; german: link=no, Luxemburg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, ; french: link=no, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg ; german: link=no, Großherzogtum Luxemburg is a small lan ...

, active between 1945 and 1965.

Founding

FLA was founded in 1945, after a split in the

Luxembourg Workers' Union The Luxembourg Workers' Union ( lb, Lëtzebuerger Arbechter-Verband, LAV) was a general union in Luxembourg. The union was founded in 1920, as the Luxembourg Mining and Metalworkers' Union. This was a merger of the Luxembourg Miners' and Ironworke ...

(LAV). The founders of FLA revolted against the

anti-communist Anti-communism is Political movement, political and Ideology, ideological opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed after the 1917 October Revolution in the Russian Empire, and it reached global dimensions during the Cold War, w ...

stance of the LAV leadership.Campbell, Joan.
European Labor Unions
'' Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1992. p. 284

Communist links

Several of the FLA leaders were also members of the

Central Committee Central committee is the common designation of a standing administrative body of Communist party, communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, of both ruling and nonruling parties of former and existing socialist states. In such party org ...

of the Communist Party of Luxembourg, including the FLA president Nic Momper and general secretary Jos Grandgenet. The opponents of FLA accused it of being a communist front. LAV charged that the founding of FLA had been an idea hatched by the communist leader Dominique Urbany. FLA was affiliated to the

World Federation of Trade Unions The World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) is an international federation of trade unions established in 1945. Founded in the immediate aftermath of World War Two, the organization built on the pre-war legacy of the International Federation of ...

.http://library.fes.de/library/netzquelle/english/eugew/history/pdf/buschak.pdf

Onset of the Cold War

At the time of its foundation FLA had around 10-11 000 members. As of 1946, FLA was the largest trade union centre amongst blue-collar workers. It was the majority union in metal industries and mines (with the exception of the mines at Dudelange, were LAV retained their prominence). However, it began to decline with the onset of the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

. From 1949 onwards the influence of FLA declined. An important factor contributing to this development was the exclusion of FLA from collective bargaining negotiations, a policy upheld by both the Luxembourgian employers as well as the trade union competitors (LAV and the LCGB). FLA was however able to retain a foothold in industries in small and medium-sized companies in rural areas of the country for some time. In the 1950 elections to the Labour Chamber, FLA trailed behind both LAV and LCGB.

Later phase and dissolution

In 1958 FLA, along with three other WFTU-affiliated labour centres in Western Europe ( CGT,

CGIL The Italian General Confederation of Labour (; CGIL) is a national trade union based in Italy. It was formed by agreement between socialists, communists, and Christian democrats in the "Pact of Rome" of June 1944. In 1950, socialists and Christi ...

EVC EVC may refer to: * Eastern Valley Conference, a defunct American high school athletics conference * Ecological vegetation class * Economic value to the customer * Eden Village Camp, a Jewish summer camp in New York state * Electric Vehicle Comp ...

) set up a Common Market Action Committee. In 1965 FLA was dissolved. At the time of its dissolution, it had around 1500 members. Most of them joined LAV unions.

References

{{Portal, Organized labour Trade unions in Luxembourg National federations of trade unions 1945 establishments in Luxembourg 1965 disestablishments in Luxembourg World Federation of Trade Unions Trade unions established in 1945 Trade unions disestablished in 1965