Since Bernardo Ponce started working at the now JBS Swift & Co. meat-packing plant in Hyrum 14 years ago, ownership has changed four times.

Each time employees saw their benefits decreased or eliminated, Ponce said. So when he heard this summer about some of his co-workers trying to unionize the plant, he rallied behind them and encouraged others to join their fight.

"[The companies] just kept taking things away," he said in Spanish. "We wanted the union to make a change."

This week, after months of organizing and attending community meetings, more than two-thirds of plant workers voted to join the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW).

Some 1,000 workers were eligible to vote in Wednesday's election on paper ballots in the plant's cafeteria. Of ballots cast, 649 (69 percent) were for the union and 290 voted against, said UFCW spokesman Evan Yeats,

In the 1980s and on and off since then, workers have tried to unionized but failed. The Hyrum site was the only plant that was not unionized when federal agents arrested some 1,300 undocumented workers in December 2006 during an immigration raid on six meat-packing plants nationwide, then owned by Swift & Co., one of the world's largest meat processors. JBS bought Swift last year.

This time, workers started organizing meetings in August and later petitioned the National Labor Relations Board for an election.

Ponce, who makes $16 an hour as a plant maintenance worker, said the work to get people to approve the union was well worth it. He learned about the union from his friends who work at the Greeley, Colo., plant to help him sell his cause here.

"It's so exciting because we won," he said. "I knew it would be something good for us."

Johnny Garland, who has worked at the plant for 13 months, said workers were happy about the union election and were giving each other thumbs up around the plant.

"[The workers] are just tired about how they've been treated here at the company," he said. "There's no respect here."

Garland and Ponce said they are looking forward to better benefits for their families and having the union looking out for their rights.

"The biggest benefit is having a voice at work," Garland said.

Jim Judd, president of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) in Utah, said the advantage of being part of the union is that workers and their families are taken care of and have representation with their employer. And better benefits also take some pressure off government assistance, he said.

The union also will press other companies, typically in the same industry, in the area to increase benefits and salaries, Judd said.

"It will eventually help every worker in Utah," he said.

JBS spokeswoman Tamara Smid said in an e-mail statement: "[JBS Swift & Co.] said from the beginning that JBS respected our employees' right to organize. Our employees in Hyrum have spoken; we look forward to this new partnership with the employees and the United Food and Commercial Workers Union."

jsanchez@sltrib.com