 The ILWU participated in numerous disputes in the following years, and in the 1940s, it was integral in winning many strikes that lead to better pay and conditions for waterfront workers.The Vancouver and District Waterfront Workers' Association (VDWWA) was established as a company union following a defeated longshoremen's strike in 1923, replacing the International Longshoremen's Association.Communist organizers with the Workers' Unity League (WUL) managed to seize control of the VDWWA's executive a decade later and transformed it into a militant union, which then began working towards strike action.