The IWA was formed when members of the
Sawmill and Timber Workers' Union division of the
United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America voted to disaffiliate their local unions and form their own union. The IWA subsequently affiliated with the
Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). The IWA quickly moved into
Canada, where it absorbed a number of smaller unions which had formed in the 1930s, and the
Lumber Workers Industrial Union, one of the industrial unions of the
Industrial Workers of the World. Harold Pritchett was elected president. A successful
strike and organizing drive in 1946 established the IWA as western Canada's largest union, a position that it has generally held since then. The union entered Newfoundland in 1956, but was expelled in 1959 after the
Newfoundland Loggers' Strike. The IWA was staunchly
Democratic, and avoided
left-wing politics throughout its history. Most of its members lived and worked in the American and Canadian West. Its membership reached as high as 115,000 in the early 1970s. In the 1980s,
raids, mergers and
anti-union actions by employers decimated the IWA's membership. The burgeoning
environmental movement also restricted access to
public lands, where most
old-growth timber existed. As the timber industry lost access to public land, timber companies shed thousands of jobs as well. In 1987, the Canadian branch of the IWA separated from union, retaining the IWA initials but with the new name
Industrial, Wood and Allied Workers of Canada (IWA Canada). By 1994, the remainder of the U.S.-based IWA had just over 20,000 members. The IWA leadership felt the union was no longer viable on its own, and it merged with the IAM on May 1, 1994. IWA Canada remained an independent Canadian union until 2004, when it merged with the
United Steelworkers. ==Presidents==