The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has ruled that employees at the Mountaire Farms plant in Selbyville who are members of the Teamsters Local 355 will get the chance to vote on keeping the union this month.
Approximately 230 employees at the plant are members of the Teamsters Union and work in various departments at the plant.
In December, employees who were part of the United Food Commercial Workers at the Selbyville plant voted overwhelmingly to decertify that union during a mail-in ballot process.
Following the decertification, the former union workers were eligible for benefits given to non-union employees of Mountaire.
After that election, a Teamsters union employee gathered signatures and submitted a petition to the NLRB in early February asking to decertify the Teamsters union. The election will be held in person at the plant and overseen by the NLRB.
“These employees have been patiently waiting for this opportunity to remove the union, and we’re happy they finally are getting that chance to have their voices heard,” stated Phillip Plylar, president of Mountaire Farms.
Selbyville is the only processing plant owned by Mountaire Farms which has a union. The plant was acquired from Townsends.
Unions have made little headway in the poultry industry, which has been accused of “wage-fixing,” with the Biden Administration launching a civil investigation. Poultry companies have also faced legal action on alleged price fixing.
Poultry plants have a large number of immigrants who according to union backers fear reprisals for speaking out about working conditions. Mountaire has said it has an open-door process in dealing with human resource issues.
