Action alert: Show your support for new union at Allan Brothers

NACHES, Wash. (Oct. 16, 2020) — The workers at Allan Brothers Fruit, who were the first of several Yakima Valley fruit warehouses who went on strike in May and June for better pay and safer working conditions during the pandemic, are seeking to have their newly formed union certified to represent the workers at Allan Brothers. The union is called Workers United for Justice, or Trabajadores Unidos por la Justicia (TUJ for short), and they need the community’s support.

TAKE A STAND — TUJ is asking all union members and community supporters to send a message to Allan Brothers management in support of these workers’ union rights.

In May and June, workers at several different fruit warehouses, who didn’t have the benefit of a union, had the courage to walk off the job because of concerns about their safety and their demands for hazard pay. They were working shoulder to shoulder during a pandemic without proper protective equipment and when their co-workers started getting sick — some of whom tragically lost their lives — they decided enough is enough. They walked out on strike — and they all ended up winning. Some warehouses gave them what they wanted within hours. Others took several long weeks. But the workers won.

It was a story that got national attention and inspired workers and union members across the country, including AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler.

“By joining together in solidarity, those workers had power,” she said at the recently held Washington State Labor Council convention.

Shuler congratulated worker-leaders from the first strike at the Allan Brothers warehouse — Angie Lara, Maribel Medina and Augustine Lopez — who have since been elected by their co-workers as officers as they organize their new union, TUJ.

During those strikes, union members and community supporters stepped up with generous donations to the strike fund and by traveling from both sides of the state to join the strikers on the picket line.

Show that same solidarity and support today by sending this message to Allan Brothers in support of their new union!

For more information, visit and follow the TUJ Facebook page.