Service + Solidarity Spotlight: Texas AFL-CIO Celebrates Pilgrim’s Pride Workers Voting Union YES

Working people across the United States have stepped up to help out our friends, neighbors and communities during these trying times. In our regular Service + Solidarity Spotlight series, we’ll showcase one of these stories every day. Here’s today’s story.

On Thursday night, July 22, working families in Texas celebrated workers at Pilgrim’s Pride, a poultry plant in Waco, Texas, voting overwhelmingly to form a union with United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 540. There are some 400 workers at the plant.

Texas AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Leonard Aguilar (UA), who provided hands-on help in the closing days of the union drive, stated the following in a news release:

“Congratulations also to UFCW. Polling shows tens of millions more workers in this country would join a union if they could, and UFCW organizers are making it possible for thousands of workers to do just that through their commitment to organizing in Texas. They are engaged in some of the toughest union organizing in some of the toughest places, and this victory shows that when workers fight anywhere, workers can win anywhere. It is especially appropriate this hard-won victory arrives in the middle of a national action week in which organized labor is working to pass the PRO Act,” said Aguilar.