TAMPA, FL--Yesterday, food service concession workers at the Tampa, Florida airport overwhelmingly voted by a wide margin to join Workers United, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union.

Workers had already signaled their desire to form a union through majority sign up, and yesterday's election gave the workers a chance to vote to be represented by Workers United, UNITE HERE or no union.

I'm so happy!" says Nevyl Veloz, a server at the airport Chili's. "All I can think about is what to do next and how we can help our co-workers. This is going to be a good job. A victory like this is something that everyone should experience once and a while."

The National Labor Relations Board held this election to settle the question of whether the workers wanted a union and which union they wanted. 194 workers voted in favor of joining Workers United. Rival UNITE HERE received 9 votes.

Yesterday's vote for Workers United ensures that these workers will now have union representation and can start bargaining a contract to solve the problems they have been facing for years, including:

* Stagnating wages,
* Retaliation for union activity,
* Age discrimination,
* Favoritism, and
* Cut hours which resulted in workers hours being unable to get healthcare.

"The company has been awful. I don't have words to describe things that they had been doing-firing people with seniority, seniors, and telling them they couldn't work in the company because of their age. They let people go because they had an accident. The company would make full time workers part time to take away their health insurance," explains Veloz.

But workers are now full of hope for the future. Veloz added, "It's been a real tough time but people are really excited and happy now. We won by a big, big margin in ballots. People are so happy, so on board and there are high expectations for us so we got to continue working. I am so happy to work with Workers United and the folks from the Southern Regional Joint Board and I have so much appreciation for the volunteer organizers who left their families to help us get out the vote these last days."

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