Gov. Greg Abbott has had Texas National Guard troops on the border for months, in horrible conditions, with no real purpose and no projected end date. Now some of them are moving to join a union after the Justice Department said that National Guard troops on state active duty orders can do so.
The troops are associating with the state’s existing public employee union, forming the Texas State Employees Union’s Military Caucus, Davis Winkie reports at Army Times. “They are the first-known troops to organize while in a state active duty status, though a small subset of full-time Guard troops, dual-status technicians, are already unionized in their civilian capacity as federal employees,” according to Winkie.
The path was cleared for the Texas troops to unionize by a Connecticut lawsuit in which public employee unions sued on behalf of Connecticut National Guard members who wanted some of the same protections as the state employees they worked alongside in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.
”Connecticut National Guard members on state orders have worked alongside the public service workers we represent to distribute protective equipment and assist with testing at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Jody Barr, a former Guard member and local union leader, in a November press release. “Yet Guard members were not able to bargain over COVID-19 safety precautions, even though the state employees they worked directly alongside were able to have a voice in COVID-19 testing, shift safety, and other necessary precautions.”
The Justice Department moved to have that lawsuit dismissed, not because it was without merit, but because “the Government agrees” that a federal law banning members of the military from unionizing “does not apply to Guard members on state active duty or in the Inactive National Guard.”
At the time, the Army Times’ Winkie noted that the Texas National Guard Troops on Operation Lone Star would be one of the relatively rare cases in which National Guard troops are on state active duty for long enough to organize. And now they are—with good reason.
Abbott’s quest to look tough on immigrants has led him to pull thousands of National Guard members away from their families, businesses, and schools to go sit in the desert doing little. In some cases their pay has been late, they are stationed at outposts with no bathrooms, and the state has slashed tuition assistance for its National Guard. Several Texas National Guard members have died by suicide believed to be related to the operation, and another has died after being accidentally shot by a fellow soldier. Increasingly, they have spoken out about the conditions they face and the futility of their photo op of a nonmission. Lawmakers have called for investigations. But Abbott is steadfast: He really, really wants this Trumpian photo op and platform for complaining about President Joe Biden at whatever cost to his state’s National Guard.
Public employee unions are not allowed to strike or engage in collective bargaining in Texas, but the troops who are unionizing hope that doing so will give them an increased voice and protections.