It was established as a company union by the Shipping Federation of British Columbia after it defeated a strike and broke the local of the International Longshoremen's Association that previously represented the longshoremen.
Agitators from the Communist Party of Canada were elected to the union executive in 1933, linking it to the Workers' Unity League and thus transformed it into a militant union.
The VDWWA was itself broken in 1935 after another waterfront strike in Vancouver.
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