The International Bargaining Forum (IBF) was established in 2003 as the mechanism within which representative maritime employers organisations and seafarers unions could negotiate and reach agreement over the wages and conditions of employment of seafarers serving on ships to which ITF Special Agreements apply.

The IBF meets at least once each year, and more frequently in years when the wage negotiations are conducted.  Full meetings usually involve fifty or more representatives of the two sides and the venues are usually significant maritime centres such as London, Tokyo, Rome, Hong Kong and Singapore,

The IBF usually delegates detailed negotiations of pay claims to a joint working group, which may meet three or four times during the negotiations at different venues.  In addition, the IBF has two standing Committees, dealing with welfare fund grants and areas of warlike activity respectively, and ad-hoc working groups are established from time to time to deal with specific issues such as the ITF Athens Policy, the ILO Maritime Labour Convention or the ITF Beneficial Ownership Policy.

The secretariat to the IBF is provided jointly by the JNG and by the ITF.