How to Start a Union in Texas: Cards, Election, and Bargaining

To start a union in Texas at a private-sector workplace, you follow the same federal process used anywhere else in the country: talk with coworkers, get at least 30% of them to sign authorization cards, and file for a secret-ballot election with the National Labor Relations Board. One Texas-specific point belongs at the top. Texas is a right-to-work state, so even after a union wins, no employee can be required to join it or pay dues.¹ That reality shapes how you organize from the first conversation onward.

Who Can Actually Do This in Texas

The National Labor Relations Act gives most private-sector employees the right to organize and bargain collectively over wages, hours, and working conditions.² Several groups sit outside that coverage entirely:³

Independent contractors who run their own businesses rather than depend economically on a single employer.
Supervisors with authority to hire, fire, discipline, or direct other employees using independent judgment.
Agricultural workers and people employed in household domestic service.
Railroad and airline employees, who organize under the Railway Labor Act instead.

Public employees are the biggest carve-out to know about. Texas law prohibits state and local government officials from entering into collective bargaining contracts with labor organizations or recognizing a union as the bargaining agent for public employees, and any contract that violates this prohibition is void.⁴ If you work for a Texas state agency, county, school district, or municipality, the NLRB election process described below does not apply to you. Public employees can still form associations and advocate, but the legal machinery to force an employer to the bargaining table isn’t there.

Step 1: Build Support Before Anything Gets Filed

The real work happens in conversations, not paperwork. Start by identifying the specific issues driving interest in a union at your workplace: pay, scheduling, safety, the absence of a grievance process, whatever it actually is. One-on-one conversations with coworkers work far better than group pitches this early. You’re gauging genuine interest, not selling.

Once you have a core group of supportive coworkers, form an organizing committee. It should reflect the mix of your workplace across departments, shifts, job classifications, and seniority. The committee keeps conversations going, answers skeptical questions, and plans the card campaign. Many organizing efforts partner with an established union at this stage, which brings experience with NLRB procedures and campaign resources.

Federal law protects your right to talk with coworkers about wages, benefits, and working conditions, and that protection extends to social media when the discussion relates to group action or brings a workplace complaint to management’s attention.⁵ Venting alone about a personal grievance with no connection to group action isn’t protected concerted activity. Deliberately false or egregiously offensive statements also lose protection.

Step 2: Collect Authorization Cards

Authorization cards are signed documents in which individual employees declare they want a specific union to represent them for collective bargaining. The NLRB requires signed cards from at least 30% of employees in the proposed bargaining unit before it will process an election petition.⁶ Experienced organizers aim well above 50%. Not everyone who signs a card will vote “yes” on election day, and support tends to erode once the employer launches its campaign. Starting with 65% or higher gives a real cushion.

Keep the process confidential. Your employer has no legal right to see the cards or know who signed them. Cards go to the NLRB as a “showing of interest” and are treated as confidential. Pressuring or deceiving anyone into signing can invalidate a card, so make sure every signer understands what they’re signing.

Step 3: File the Election Petition

Once you have enough cards, the union or a group of employees files an election petition with the NLRB regional office. Texas is served by NLRB Region 16, headquartered in Fort Worth with a resident office in Houston.⁷ You can file electronically, by fax, or by hand-delivering the paperwork. The petition uses NLRB Form 502, and you also submit a Certificate of Service (Form 5544) along with the showing of interest.⁸ The cards themselves go only to the NLRB, never to your employer.

The regional office then investigates whether it has jurisdiction and whether the proposed bargaining unit is appropriate. The agency will try to get the employer and the union to agree on the election terms, including which employees are eligible to vote. If they can’t agree, the regional director holds a hearing and issues a decision.

Once an election is approved, the employer must provide a voter eligibility list within two business days. That list contains the names, home addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses of every employee eligible to vote, and the union uses it to reach voters before the election.⁹

Step 4: The Election

The NLRB conducts the election by secret ballot, either at the workplace or by mail, and the regional director schedules the vote for the earliest practicable date.⁶ Under current NLRB rules, the process from petition filing to election day can move in as few as three to four weeks when the parties cooperate.

NLRB agents count ballots on-site after voting closes. A simple majority of votes cast decides it. If 50 workers vote and 26 pick the union, the union wins, regardless of how many eligible employees stayed home. The threshold is a majority of votes actually cast, not a majority of everyone in the unit.¹⁰

Either party can file objections within seven days of the vote count. Valid objections involve conduct that may have tainted the results, such as threats, surveillance, or misleading statements by either side. The NLRB investigates and can order a new election if warranted.

After You Win: Bargaining and What Right-to-Work Means in Practice

Certification is a milestone, not the finish line. Once the NLRB certifies the union, your employer has a legal obligation to bargain in good faith over wages, hours, and other working conditions. Both sides must meet at reasonable times and make a genuine effort to reach agreement, though neither side is required to accept any particular proposal or make concessions.¹¹ An employer who refuses to bargain, or engages in surface bargaining without genuine intent to reach agreement, commits an unfair labor practice, and the remedy is another charge with the NLRB regional office. First contracts often take a year or longer.

Federal law allows unions and employers elsewhere to negotiate “union security” agreements requiring workers to join within 30 days of hire.¹¹ Texas overrides that. No one in Texas can be denied employment based on union membership or non-membership.¹ A certified union in Texas still represents every employee in the bargaining unit, but each worker decides individually whether to pay dues. Organizing here demands stronger grassroots support, because the union has to prove its value to every worker rather than lean on mandatory membership. Unions that thrive in Texas tend to hold high voluntary participation by delivering visible results at the table.

What Your Employer Can and Cannot Do

The NLRA makes it an unfair labor practice for an employer to interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees who are exercising their organizing rights. Firing or otherwise punishing you for filing charges with the NLRB or testifying in an NLRB proceeding is also illegal.¹¹ Employers cannot dominate or financially support a labor organization, discriminate against workers to discourage union membership, or refuse to bargain with a certified union.

Employers do have significant latitude to campaign against unionization. They can hold mandatory meetings to share their views, distribute anti-union literature, and explain why they believe a union isn’t in employees’ interest. The line is drawn at threats, promises of benefit tied to the election outcome, interrogation about union sympathies, and surveillance of organizing activity. If your employer crosses that line, file an unfair labor practice charge with the regional office. Charges are typically investigated within 7 to 14 weeks, and the NLRB will try to facilitate a settlement before issuing a formal complaint.⁷

Practical Ways to Protect the Effort

The most common way organizing campaigns derail in Texas isn’t through illegal employer conduct. It’s through lost momentum. A few habits help.

Document everything. If your employer retaliates against organizing activity, written records of what happened and when are essential to filing an unfair labor practice charge.
Watch the timing. Once a valid election has been held, no new election can be directed in the same bargaining unit for 12 months. Losing means waiting a full year, so filing the petition when support is strongest matters.¹⁰
File charges promptly. If your employer threatens, interrogates, or punishes workers for organizing, contact the NLRB regional office right away. The Board investigates and can seek injunctive relief in serious cases.⁷
Build for the long haul. In a right-to-work state your union needs strong voluntary participation to sustain itself, so the organizing committee shouldn’t disband after certification. It becomes the foundation for contract bargaining and ongoing member engagement.

1
State of Texas. Texas Labor Code 101.052 – Denial of Employment Based on Labor Union Membership Prohibited
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 U.S.C. 157 – Right of Employees as to Organization, Collective Bargaining, Etc.
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 U.S.C. 152 – Definitions
4
State of Texas. Texas Government Code 617.002 – Collective Bargaining by Public Employees Prohibited
5
National Labor Relations Board. Social Media
6
National Labor Relations Board. Representation Case Procedures
7
National Labor Relations Board. Investigate Charges
8
National Labor Relations Board. Steps for Filing a Petition
9
National Labor Relations Board. NLRB Representation Case-Procedures Fact Sheet
10
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 U.S.C. 159 – Representatives and Elections
11
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 U.S.C. 158 – Unfair Labor Practices