The United Transportation Union is a national organization created in 1969 to consolidate into one union railway conductors, brakemen, locomotive firemen, and enginemen, railroad trainmen, and switchmen, all of whom previously had their own unions. UTU Local 720 represented employees of the Green Bay and Western Railroad. Unfortunately the standard organization records are missing from the collection, and as a result it is difficult to construct a basic history of the local. A 1971 newsletter indicates that the local's predecessor unions in Green Bay existed as early as 1896. The records predating the formation of the UTU in the collection are those of Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen Lodge 445. For much of this period the secretary-treasurer and general chairman of the Green Bay & Western Committee of Adjustment was John C. Switzer. About 1985 he became manager of labor relations and personnel for GB&W, and he was replaced by Richard Jobelius. In 1971 Local 720 absorbed Local 143.
