Strike Means Montana Guard Does Duty in Home for Elderly
Montana National Guard troops stood guard duty over prisons and cared for the elderly on Saturday, the third day of a state employees strike.
“This is something we don’t train for, but it’s like my sergeant writes on the bottom of all his memos: Improvise, adapt, overcome,” said Capt. Douglas Rude of the Guard’s 163rd Infantry Battalion, which was sent to the Montana Center for the Aged in Lewistown to help feed and care for 139 elderly and ill patients.
Steve Johnson, the state’s chief labor negotiator, said Saturday he would meet informally with union officials over the weekend.
“Whenever there’s hope for talks, there’s hope for settlement, but we’re still quite a ways apart,” said Jim McGarvey of the striking Montana Federation of State Employees.
About 4,500 workers, including prison guards, Highway Patrol officers, clerical employees and attendants at the state mental hospital and state home for the mentally retarded walked off the job Thursday and Friday in a dispute over wages.
About 7,300 of Montana’s 13,000 state employees are union members. Roughly 700 National Guard troops were sent to the prison and other state institutions Saturday to fill in.
The walkout began after the Legislature on Wednesday failed to override Gov. Stan Stephens’ veto of a pay package that would have given state employees a 60-cent-an-hour raise.
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