Local 32 of the Packinghouse Workers Organizing Committee (PWOC) won certification as bargaining agent for the employees of the John Morrell Company's Ottumwa, Iowa, plant in December 1937 and represented its workers, in one form or another, until the plant closed in 1973. In 1943 the Congress of Industrial Unions (CIO) dissolved the PWOC and chartered the United Packinghouse Workers of America (UPWA). Local 32 became Local 1 of the UPWA. The UPWA became the United Packinghouse, Food and Allied Workers, AFL-CIO, in 1960 (but retained its UPWA initials) and in 1968 merged with the rival Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America (AMCBWNA). UPWA Local 1 became Local P-1 of the AMCBWNA. Before 1968, Local 1 belonged to UPWA regional District No. 3; after the merger it came under AMCBWNA District No. 11.
Morrell's Ottumwa plant began operations in 1877 and remained the company's home office until the AMK conglomerate acquired the Morrell Company in 1967. AMK merged with United Brands in 1970. The Ottumwa plant processed both cattle and hogs and at peak production in the 1970's employed over 2,750 people. Over the years the plant faced recurrent threats of closing and the company reversed its 1970 decision to shut down only after negotiating a “memorandum of agreement” with the union. After 1970 the company drastically changed plant operations and sharply reduced the work force. United Brands closed the Ottumwa plant in 1973.
Labor organizing efforts at the Ottumwa plant began at least as early as the 1920's and continued through 1970 when office employees joined production workers in Local P-1. A great deal of conflict, including strikes and other job actions, accompanied union activities, especially in the earlier years. For example, in 1956 UPWA President Ralph Helstein appointed an administrator to govern the Local during a period of worker unrest which culminated in a company lock-out. Prior to the 1970 “memorandum,” and again in 1973 with the plant closing, the union focused its efforts on protecting workers' rights in the areas of pensions, seniority, transfer, severance pay, and welfare provisions.
An Executive Board of elected officers governed the Local. The Board included an elected chief steward who served as a full-time union employee coordinating grievance activities and leading the steward system. Virgil Bankson, a long-time Morrell employee, served as chief steward for eighteen years before the plant closed. The membership also elected a bargaining board and several other committees.
