UFCW Membership Gain at Meatpacker JBS

The almost 1,200 workers at the JBS plant in Souderton, Pennsylvania, have voted to join the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 1776.

The win was the successful conclusion of a months-long campaign designed to obtain union representation for the nearly 1,200 JBS workers in Souderton, but also as part of a UFCW-led nationwide effort aimed at raising wages and benefits for all workers in the meatpacking and poultry industries.

Brazil-based JBS, S.A., the world’s largest company in the beef sector, acquired the Souderton facility with the purchase of the Smithfield Beef Group in 2008.

By choosing UFCW Local 1776 as their bargaining representative, workers at the JBS plant in Souderton have joined 27,000 JBS workers and 250,000 meatpacking and poultry workers across the United States already represented by the UFCW.

UFCW Local 1776 represents thousands of packinghouse and food processing workers in Pennsylvania at plants such as Empire Kosher Poultry in Mifflintown, Cargill in Hazelton, BC Natural Chicken in Fredericksburg and Citterio USA in Freeland.