 In 1903 , a dispute between the FVdG and the Free Trade Unions in Berlin led the party commission to intervene and to sponsor talks aimed at re @-@ unification of the two wings of the German labor movement . At the meeting , the FVdG made a number of compromises , which led to member protests . Soon , over one @-@ third of the members left the union . The 1903 FVdG congress elected a panel to continue negotiations with the Free Trade Unions . This panel demanded that the Free Trade Unions adopt localist organizational principles as a prerequisite for re @-@ unification . The FVdG panel realized this demand was unrealistic , but hoped the expulsion of revisionists from the SPD during the debate on Eduard Bernstein 's theses would strengthen their position . The impossibility of a reconciliation between the two became obvious by March 1904 , since the re @-@ unification envisioned by both the leadership of the SPD and the Free Trade Unions was more along the lines of an integration of the FVdG into the Free Trade Unions . 
