[Texas Tribune] “We are dying”: Houston workers protest new state law removing water break requirements ( www.texastribune.org )

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House Bill 2127, which takes effect on Sept. 1, will do away with local rules that require water breaks for construction workers. The cities of Austin and Dallas, for example, require 10-minute breaks every four hours. San Antonio officials had been considering a similar ordinance.

“We are human beings who need respect,” Martínez said. “We really need to be allowed to work without problems, without any barriers … Believe me, we are dying inside those buildings when they take away our water and our [break] time.”

Waraugh ,

It’s crazy to me that anyone could sit on their ass in AC all day and even consider speaking to take water breaks away from construction workers. I went in figuring they got 10 minutes per hour and it’s only 10 minutes per four hours?! Fuck that noise, they need more time to rest and hydrate. What the fuck is wrong with people.

TwoGems , (edited )
@TwoGems@lemmy.world avatar

Ribbit

electrogamerman ,

Bro, americans are slaves. I thought they abolished slavery.

webadict ,

Only for everything other than punishment, and being poor is a crime in America.

Raphael ,
@Raphael@lemmy.world avatar

If you’re too poor you’re literally sent to a gulag and forced into slave work.

Raphael ,
@Raphael@lemmy.world avatar

They also practice slavery in their gulags.

tegs_terry ,

They got chain gangs in Florida, in this prison where they eat meat scraps for alligators; the packaging says ‘not suitable for human consumption’.

AlwaysNowNeverNotMe ,
@AlwaysNowNeverNotMe@kbin.social avatar

Watching Joe Arpaio proudly show off his concentration camp in Arizona to Chinese diplomats and with a grin talk about how they put women in chain gangs, earning hardly veiled disgust from the representatives of the second most brutal regime on earth.

tegs_terry ,

The veils need to come off across the board I reckon.

BuckRowdy ,
@BuckRowdy@lemmy.world avatar

Greg Abbott is a little piss baby.

Mdotaut801 ,

*Crippled little piss baby.

Normally, I would never dream of bringing up someone’s disability but I feel it’s appropriate in this case…because Abbott is one of the biggest shit stains in America.

AnarchistArtificer ,

It feels pretty shitty to be a disabled person scrolling by and seeing comments like this. I don’t think that Abbott being a shitty person makes your statement any less hurtful to non-shitty disabled people

postmateDumbass ,

Texas is learning Qatari World Cup stadium construction methods

Swedneck ,
@Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

So like what does it take for people to revolt? are they just going to stand idly by while their fellows actually die, waiting for their own turn to stroke out from overworking and dehydration?

yata ,

As long as it owns the libs, a lot of Americans, and in particular Texans, will very happily do that.

Swedneck ,
@Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

chopping your dick off to own the libs

Saneless ,

If the politicians can do those jobs under those conditions for a week, have at it

The actual benefit would be some state reps would die during the exercise, and well, that’s enough

thepianistfroggollum ,

Please make Abbot participate.

ThrowawayPermanente ,

I get where they’re coming from with this, but if I’m out doing physical labor in the hot sun I need water like ever 20 minutes. Four hours is an eternity.

thepianistfroggollum ,

It’s the break part, not the water part. I doubt they’re not allowed to carry water bottles, but they need a chance to refill.

RidcullyTheBrown ,

I get where they’re coming from with this

I really don’t. What is the point of this law?

_sideffect ,

Wtf is this shit… If you’re overheated and dehydrated, stop, drink water.

It’s pretty simple

BoopsieBoop ,

Sure, to a reasonable human, it’s simple. But take into consideration terrible bosses and ceos that only care about profits and you get businesses that threaten you if you sit for 5 minutes.

_sideffect ,

It’s why they want people to stay poor as well, because then you can’t leave the job or strike without pay, as you can’t afford it, so you have to keep working and hope change comes through laws (which if it ever does, it takes years)

DeltaSix ,

So how fucked up we want to make everything for the backbone-industry everyone is needing:

US: Yes

Seriously, I can’t even understand how people allow this to happen in your own country. It would be political suicide to try this in any place of Germany.

Crismus ,

Individual votes don’t count nearly as much as corporate cash.

This is the epitome of late stage capitalism in the US.

buttsbuttsbutts ,

Your first sentence is absolutely accurate, but I think this specific case is more about sticking it to the libs in the cities that passed these laws, with the side benefit that most of these workers are minorities that the state reps don’t like.

Vaginal_blood_fart ,

On the upside, fewer Texans. /s

Nocuras ,

And here I am contemplating what kind of world we live in where people working a regular job can’t just get up and go drink as much as they need whenever they need… I mean ok sure don’t drop the heavy steel beam you carry with a coworker until you have it in place, but after you finished a task it shouldn’t take more than a “I’m going to take a drink” and off you go. Also sure be prepared to face consequences if you don’t get anything done… But it surely can’t be more detrimental to your work output to drink for a minute every so often than not drinking at all and getting fatigue etc.

MagicalPanda ,
@MagicalPanda@lemmy.world avatar

In most parts of the USA most children are taught to ask for things such as water and bathroom breaks at school, up til senior year of highschool. When the kids do not listen they are reprimanded/punished. This leads to brainwashing. Some young adults never do break out of the habit of asking. This leads to situations of dehydration and death.

It’s straight up bizarre having a 25 year old man walk up to me(30F) and ask to use the restroom or get a drink of water. Granted I was also brainwashed til about 22. It dawned on me one day it was straight up dumb to ask for water or to use the restroom.

OwenEverbinde ,
@OwenEverbinde@reddthat.com avatar

Yeah, in modern American schools, the students are the product and billionaires are the customers.

AA5B ,

I don’t see how school is the same scenario at all. In school, you have a natural break every 45 minutes or so, and can choose to do your business then, rather than disrupt class for everyone. Also, kids do need to learn some control, to pick appropriate times when you can. Most importantly, too many kids abuse the freedom to disrupt or skip class: they have no reason to care about a reprimand whereas an adult probably has their income on the line.

Of course, after saying that, I do have to add that my ex is a teacher who does not want kids to ask. She controls the potential for abuse with a token (beanie baby) allowing only two to go at once, and she has the privilege of a private school with higher standards for their kids

MagicalPanda ,
@MagicalPanda@lemmy.world avatar

We definitely went to two different school systems. I went to a school where one of the teachers told my brother he couldn’t use the restroom so he had to use a bucket, in his emergency. He got detention for it. My mom with 10 kinds of pissed off.

kite ,

By “natural break”, ate you talking about the times between classes? If so, I do not know of a single school around the area that I grew up in that gave their students more than 3 minutes to get to the next class. That wasn’t even enough time for us to go to our lockers to get the next classes books; we all had to carry enormous bags that would fit all of our morning, and then afternoon classes books. There was absolutely no time to use the bathroom during that time. Even lunch time wasn’t enough, because they didn’t give us enough time to eat, forget about doing anything else. If you chose to use the bathroom at lunch, you were choosing not to eat that day.

teamevil ,

This reminds me of the Chain gang in the Paul Newman movie Cool Hand Luke. They are working on roads in hot Florida weather and have to ask the boss for water or to take their shirt off or basically to do any autonomous function.

tieme ,

Drinking it up here boss.

onionbaggage ,

If an employer doesn’t allow you a water break in this heat then it’s time to leave them without employees.

dangblingus ,

This should be an absolute no brainer of an issue to unionize over.

Hazdaz ,

What is the LeopardAteMyFace equivalent for Lemmy? Because this belongs there.

Guaranteed that the same people complaining about this water break issue now are also people who in the last election either couldn’t be bothered to go vote, or voted for that clown Abbott. You vote for fascists, you get fascist policies.

fearout ,
@fearout@kbin.social avatar

LeomardsAteMyFace

Shinhoshi ,

!leopardsatemyface

Something_Complex ,

And yet all the votes except for ONE came from the Republican party…

Something_Complex ,

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/b7900480-e94d-4123-b84f-b3cd41e3a1e5.png

AnarchistArtificer ,

I don’t know if the person you’re replying to was mistaken, or whether votes are different from sponsors, but I’m seeing two Democrats here.

But that’s a minor clarification that doesn’t reduce the point at all - that’s a heck of a lot of Republicans

Something_Complex ,

The person was me XD. Also God deam rep Guilean…

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