“The strike was successful, but there was no organization to repre- sent (the strikers),” McKnight notes. But the wage settlement became the provincial standard by legisla- tion and union organizing followed shortly after. The strike action at Great Central Lake became the gen- esis of the I.W.A., McKnight asserts. Some of that history was outlined in articles carried in the local Alberni Valley Times newspaper last Octo- ber. In that edition, several Alberni firms published congratulations to the local on its 60th anniversary. 1.W.A. Local 1-85 was chartered in 1937, within a year of the inter- national union’s founding after members quit the Lumber and Sawmill Workers Union, an affiliate of the American Federation of Labour run by the Carpenters Union. The newly formed Federation of Woodworkers, which subsequently became the I.W.A., was chartered to as the more militant, rank-and-file '|8 Congress of Industrial Organiza- § tions. Local 1-85 went on to fight $ several battles for wages, benefits Wl g and job safety, including lengthy