Ten electrical workers have gone on strike in Corpus Christi, Texas. The electricians were hired to work on the Hector P. Garcia Clinic by a company called T.L. Electric.

Last Friday, the workers staged a walkout to protest unfair labor practices. They returned on Monday to find they had been replaced:

The men on strike said T.L. Electric required them to have mandatory overtime on weekends and if they could not work, they were suspended for a week without pay. They also said the company did not provide water on the work site and would not let one employee leave for grievance purposes.
 
According to the local union, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the company broke a federal labor law by replacing workers for forming a labor union. The men on strike said were locked out from the work site on Monday morning after filing their complaint with the union.

The workers are now picketing at the construction site for the Dr. Hector P. Garcia Memorial Family Health Center.

“They want to be compensated fairly. They weren’t provided water on the job,” [union organizer for IBEW Local Union 278 David] Carranco said. “They were told if they did not work mandatory overtime on Saturday, they’d be suspended a week with no pay.”

The situation is more convoluted because the site feature a mixture of union and non-union workers, the company does not want to be a union shop, and many of the non-union employees want to organize:

“It’s important that it’s here on the site of the Hector P. Garcia clinic, because he advocated for civil rights and labor unions,” Carranco said.