In Texas, National Guard members faced painful cuts and absurd assignments by Republican governor Greg Abbott. So they did what many exploited workers before them have done: they organized a union.
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Operating outside the national media spotlight on recent labor recruitment in the private sector, key activists were not deterred. In mid-April, members of the Texas State Guard, Army, and Air Force National Guard declared themselves to be the “Military Caucus” of the Texas State Employees Union (TSEU), an affiliate of the Communications Workers of America (CWA). Taking aim at Republican governor Greg Abbott, who has ordered thousands of them to police the US-Mexico border, these TSEU supporters called for greater legislative oversight of such open-ended missions so that Guard members are called up only to “provide genuine service to the public good, not posturing for political gain.”
Their own mission statement announced that they will seek meetings with legislators, the governor’s office, and the state agency known as the Texas Military Department. Union goals include a guaranteed end date for all Guard members on state active duty, full restoration of tuition assistance slashed by Abbott, and immediate access to the same health care coverage as other state employees, along with state subsidized coverage “for our families while on Texas Military state mobilization.”
To achieve these objectives, they pledged to “build a union which gets stronger with every new member we sign up” and coordinate with other state employees who have a “proud history of organizing” as part of the eighty-five-hundred-member TSEU.
R&I – FS
Bugs Marlowe