The Postal, Telegraph, and Telephone International (PTTI) was formed in 1911 in Bern as the International Federation of Posts, Telegraphs, and Telephones. However, the official founding conference was not held until 1920 in Milan, when postal employees realized that during World War I, the post office was unique in having maintained its international connections, and consequently should be developed as an instrument for world peace. The anti-fascist and anti-communist PTTI eagerly sought the spread of democratic trade unionism. It promoted the League of Nations and tried in its early years to be non-political for fear of a split between those who favored a separate trade union and those who favored affiliation with industrial unions. In the early 1920's, however, the union refused to admit the Soviet Postal Workers Union, also known at that time as the Russian Postal Federation. Though always interested in learning from their foreign colleagues and uniting postal workers from all supposedly democratic nations, the discussions in the PTTI in the pre-WWII era seem to reflect concerns with nationalization of the postal services and employee control. In the early 1930's, PTTI's membership surged into the hundreds of thousands, mainly of unionists from European countries. Because of communication difficulties, the implementation of Esperanto was attempted with some limited success. After 1935, the PTTI lost thousands of members as fascist forces closed PTTI offices in Vienna, Berlin, and other cities.
In 1947, the PTTI joined the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) as an International Trade Secretariat. In 1949, American unions and their allies withdrew from the WFTU because of rising cold-war tensions and disagreement over the Marshall Plan. They formed the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, and the PTTI followed suit. Throughout the 1950's and 1960's, the PTTI conducted research on the postal services of newly independent nations of Asia and Africa, and of Latin America. The PTTI set up regional offices in these nations to integrate their postal unions into the International and to educate future leaders of the national postal unions. Today, the PTTI conducts educational programs and hold international conferences. In 1991, PTTI membership was more than four million based in 65 unions in 102 nations.
From the description of Records, 1914-1967. (New York University). WorldCat record id: 476039686
