One of the first and largest attempts to unionize fruitpackers in the region in recent years has failed.

A total of 328 employees of Washington-based Mount Adams Fruit voted Monday and Tuesday on unionizing with the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 3000. About 59% voted “no” and 41% voted in favor. Many of the workers are immigrants and organizers were largely Latina women who had worked at the plant for decades.

The 50,000-member union, the largest private-sector labor group in the area, represents workers in grocery, retail, health care, food processing, meat-packing and other industries across Washington, northeast Oregon and northern Idaho.

Many Mount Adams employees, who pack apples, pears and cherries at three facilities in Odell, Oregon; Bingen, Washington; and Dallesport, Washington, said their complaints about poor treatment and discrimination have not been addressed and that the company has failed to follow through on promised wage increases and requests to take time off have gone unmet. And some said they were subject to unsafe conditions.

The company’s CEO Doug Gibson said complaints were unfounded and that the union effort was being led by a small group of employees who do not represent most workers.

Maricela Barajas, 62, a union organizer who has worked at the Bingen facility for 33 years, and Mercedes Sanchez, 59, an organizer who has worked at the Bingen facility for 36 years, expressed sadness about the vote in interviews with the Capital Chronicle on Wednesday.

“To be honest, I feel a bit deceived,” said Sanchez. “We had a lot of support going into the vote, and then many people seemed to vote against the union.”

Barajas said she held back tears at work on Wednesday. “We fought so hard for many months,” she said. The effort had been a multi-year process.

Gibson told the Capital Chronicle the vote affirmed that most Mount Adams fruitpackers do not want a union, but that it also revealed a need to improve communication with staff. “It’s an opportunity to reset, and for managers and employees to work better together. The ones who wanted to unionize — we respect their interests and want to listen to their needs,” he said.