I used to live in that district and I have worked at a chemical plant there for Brown and Root, worked on my father’s shrimp boat and other things, I wasn’t aware of much union presence.
There is a strong union presence in the refineries. While Freeport and Lake Jackson aren’t as infested by unions as Port Arthur or Beaumont, unions, as you know, work across political subdivision lines to advance their agenda. I would also point out that the strength of the unions is seldom thesize of their membership in relation to the population, but rather their money and organization.
RP’s views on labor law are anathema to the unions, and they would have welcomed an opportunity to get a friendly prosecutor to go after him or to have hung this as a scandal around his neck. The fact that they didn’t do this at a time when elected Rs were rare in TX tells the story.