The International Longshoremen’s Association

The International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) is a North American labor union representing longshore workers along the East Coast of the United States and Canada, the Gulf Coast, the Great Lakes, Puerto Rico, and inland waterways; on the West Coast, the dominant union is the International Longshore and Warehouse Union. The ILA has approximately 200 local affiliates in port cities in these areas. Origins In 1864, the first modern longshoremen's union was formed in the port of New York. It was called the Longshoremen's Union Protective Association (LUPA). While longshoremen in the United States had organized and conducted strikes before there was a United States, the ILA traces its origins to a union of longshoremen on the Great Lakes: the Association of Lumber Handlers founded in 1877, then renamed the National Longshoremen's Association of the United States, in 1892. It joined the American Federation of Labor in 1895 and renamed itself the International Longshoremen's Association several years later, when it admitted Canadian longshoremen to membership.