SELBYVILLE, DEL. – Employees who work at the Mountaire Farms in Selbyville, Del., are planning on voting to get rid of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 27 later this November, according to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). 

The company said that an employee-led petition in October was accepted by the NLRB, which is set in motion to let employees remove the UFCW as their representative. Mail-in ballots will be sent to employees on Nov. 18 and are due back to NLRB by Dec. 16.

“This has been a long process for our employees to have their voices heard,” said Phillip Plylar, president of Mountaire Farms. “We support our employees and their right to freely choose whether they want a union or not.”

In summer 2020, Mountaire said employees asked for the decertification of its UFCW chapter but were denied on a technicality. A mail-in ballot was held but the union filed numerous challenges. Eventually, the NLRB threw out the vote without counting it. Fall 2021 was the next opportunity for employees to ask for an election.  

Mountaire Farms said its Selbyville location is the only processing plant owned by the company where there are unions, which have been part of this plant since it was purchased in 1977.