 While Ward remained leader of the union, he was away throughout World War I, leading a labour battalion, and he then led it as an anti-Soviet force in the Russian Civil War.The lack of leadership led much of the union's membership to defect to its main rivals, National Association of Builders' Labourers, the United Order of General Labourers of Great Britain and Ireland, and the United Builders' Labourers Union.In 1920, the National Federation of Building Trade Operatives arranged a merger conference between the four unions of labourers, but Ward returned and withdrew the union from them.