[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.”

Blamemeta ,

Shitty law, but it’s not even in effect yet.

hoodatninja ,

Yeah, because as we know, no general contractor would leap at the opportunity to start early  lol

orphiebaby ,
@orphiebaby@lemmy.world avatar

Nah, let’s wait until the law passes and people die first, that’s a great idea! /s

Arcane_Trixster ,

People are already dying in the heat. Remove water breaks and it gets worse. Are you fucking 12?

Shinhoshi ,
@Shinhoshi@lemmygrad.ml avatar

In Houston today, it’s going to feel like 43°C (110°F). When I go outside in that heat even for a second or two, I‘m already too hot, need a water break, and wonder how anyone can survive working in that.

I don’t know how anyone with a conscience could feel that heat and think removing water breaks for the workers is fine.

Maybe I’m just a stupid communist though and should try losing my conscience or something…

Blamemeta ,

If you use celsius as a default, I doubt you live in Houston.

Shinhoshi ,
@Shinhoshi@lemmygrad.ml avatar

I prefer the metric system – my weather app is set to Celsius and the Farenheight was a conversion. While I don’t live in Houston, I do live in Texas currently.

ZombieTheZombieCat ,

You’re right, only people who live in Houston, Texas are allowed to comment on how dangerous and degrading this is. I’m sure there’s no possibility of other red states adopting it or similar.

/s

I will never understand people who argue in favor of their own rights being taken away.

toasteecup ,

Nice topic dodge. Tell me more about how other temperature systems are bad for people who are dying from heat stroke.

jimbolauski ,

In hot weather OHSA requires water breaks, these laws are redundant.

yokonzo ,

Seems like there’s enough fear to cause protests at least

str00pwafel ,

OSHA and the state have different mechanisms of enforcement though, and there’s a reason OSHA guidelines aren’t followed very strictly on worksites

Sanctus ,
@Sanctus@lemmy.world avatar

When was the last time you had OSHA come crashing down on you the last time you scooted a manual fork around like a fucken razor scooter? Never? Same.

So how often do you think they will come to these people’s aid when they are having a heatstroke? Thats right. Never.

just_ducky_in_NH ,

OSHA recommends water breaks, it does not require them.

livedeified ,
@livedeified@lemmy.world avatar

so much “prolife” sentiment coming out of Texas! /s

SighBapanada ,

“we are dying”

Oh please, stop being dramatic

/s

Noetic97 ,
@Noetic97@lemmy.world avatar

A little death never hurt anyone.

/s

hawkwind , (edited )
@hawkwind@lemmy.management avatar

This will sound like I am not supporting workers, but hear me out. The intention of this law has nothing to do with taking away breaks. There’s this picture being painted of “state and evil construction companies” vs “workers and municipalities.” There’s actually two different fights here: workers vs evil construction companies and, the state vs municipalities. Focusing on the first one is important outside of how the state and city are bickering.

If you know your construction company will take away your 10 min / 4 hr water break because the city can no longer enforce that, that’s NOT the state’s fault because they’re taking a common sense approach to consolidating laws and eliminating bureaucracy. That is an evil fucking construction company.

You want to blame a lawmaker because they assumed no company would be evil enough to do that, fine, but think about that, and the entire scope of this bill, when deciding who to protest against.

EDIT: Sorry to come off looking like a republican shill. That was honestly not my intention. I’ll try harder next time. ESH except the workers trying to stay hydrated!

Juujian ,

We should remove all those laws barring children working in mines, because common sense is that mining companies would not employ children… You are conflating two issues here. What the world ought to do, and what is really happening. Folks in Texas are struggling in the sun, and we ought to give them any tool we can do they can fight back.

hawkwind ,
@hawkwind@lemmy.management avatar

Don’t be like that. I wasn’t talking about the world, or children in mines. Just this bill and the protests against its passing.

Kapitel42 ,

Nearöy every safety bill is written im blood. The blood of the workers , because corperations dont care about there workers, they care about a line ging up.

Without regulation workers would still be getting locked in factories, burning to death in care of fire.

Zron ,

Every large company will squeeze every second of productivity out of a worker unless it’s forced not to.

The 8 hour work day was fought for by workers, the 5 day work week was fought for by workers, child labor laws were fought for by workers. These things required protests and often time violence to get, because companies were literally killing people through work until these things became labor law.

Removing labor protection does nothing but remove safety for workers and increase profits for corporations.

The free market doesn’t work and has never worked. Anyone who says otherwise is willfully ignorant of history and basic logical reasoning.

hawkwind ,
@hawkwind@lemmy.management avatar

I get that, and I support everything you’re saying. It feels like the workers are getting played by the companies though. Workers should be lobbying for rights to the state, federal and municipal levels, but this feels like a “red herring” of a bill to get behind.

Zron ,

We’re talking about a Texas state law that repeals existing protections for workers.

The workers are protesting for a law that protects them. Removing this law will give them back the protections they had before.

BrainisfineIthink ,
@BrainisfineIthink@lemmy.one avatar

Don’t blame our government, it’s the evil company that would take away breaks you should be mad at!

What kind of asinine logic is this? When has any profit driven corporation ever done “the right thing” without government stipulations? Maybe you should read up on Dupont, Shelll, Exxon, Enron, Rocketdyne, and about a million other companies that did the exact opposite of that as long as they possibly could and even then some.

hawkwind ,
@hawkwind@lemmy.management avatar

I’m not sure who you are quoting, or trying to reason with, but I agree with your sentiment. A profit driven company will do everything it can to profit. Are you trying to say we should “only” be mad at the government and not the company, in this scenario?

venorathebarbarian ,

Not the person you’re asking but we can be mad at both. Companies are evil, profit driven, employee exploiters. We know this, and we must force them to treat their workers like humans. Failure by the government to force companies to treat their workers like humans is something we should be mad at the government for.

We want the government to step in BECAUSE we’re mad at the companies and want to change the companies policies.

MelonTheMan ,
@MelonTheMan@lemmy.world avatar

I appreciate you trying to explain a perspective, even if it’s possibly “wrong.” We do need to spend time trying to understand why rather than default assuming it’s because they’re awful human beings.

I don’t think the downvotes are deserved as I don’t think you’re shilling for corpo overlords or trolling.

Mongostein , (edited )

The law is a ten minute break every four hours?? That’s fucking bullshit already!

Where I live it 15 minutes after 2.5 hours if you’re only working 5 hours or less. 2 hours if you’re you’re there all day, but you get your 30-minute lunch after 4 hours, then a fifteen minute break every two hours worked after that.

masterofn001 ,

I worked at a concrete yard in Ontario, Canada for a few years. Breaks due to heat were given based on temps. At one point it was 15 minute breaks with Gatorade provided - every hour.

Americans desperately need to reestablish the proper hierarchy of power.

You have removed child labor laws across a number of states, human rights are basically done, labor has returned to 19th century standards.

So much blood was lost for nothing.

Shinhoshi ,
@Shinhoshi@lemmygrad.ml avatar

vaguely gestures at communist revolution

Americans: But my freedumbs!

toasteecup ,

I don’t think communism is the solution, but I’m upvoting because I miss the vaguely gestures meme

dangblingus ,

Fuck communism. Socialism is fine. You don’t need the government owning every single business and paying people out income equalization and food vouchers. Put the power back in the people’s hands.

Shinhoshi ,
@Shinhoshi@lemmygrad.ml avatar

Put the power back in the people’s hands.

Isn’t that what the literal goal of communism is? Under capitalism, it’s in the bourgeoisie’s hands.

A socialist state would be great though! :)

Soggy ,

Communism is the power in the people’s hands. Classless, stateless society in which the means of production are controlled by the workers and used for the benefit of the many.

dangblingus ,

That’s not communism. Communism is when the state owns the means of production. Socialism is when the workers own the means of production.

Soggy ,

Socialism does broadly encompass “social ownership” but there are many interpretations of that idea. Communism is under the umbrella of Socialism. If you’ve got a problem with Vanguardism that’s understandable, but saying “communism is when the state owns the means of production” betrays a pretty deep ignorance of the political philosophy.

RaincoatsGeorge ,

Tell me you don’t know what communism or socialism is without telling me you don’t know what communism or socialism is…

Mongostein ,

I see the same rhetoric moving in to Canada. It’s disheartening to see our closest friends and allies suffer while the disease causing it tries to creep it’s way in here.

Kodemystic ,
@Kodemystic@lemmy.kodemystic.dev avatar

Oh man… what sort of people come up with these laws? It’s already bad enough to only have 10 minutes every 4 hours, now they want to take that away too? Wtf is happening.

Zron ,

A governor who made his millions off of suing a property owner when a tree fell and broke his back.

Never worked a hard day in his life, let alone worked outside.

Someone should wheel him outside on one of these 100+ degree days and tell him he can’t drink until his 8 hours are over.

PhoenixRising ,

And now medical malpractice awards are capped.. This coming from the state that had “Dr. Death”.

GizmoLion ,
@GizmoLion@kbin.social avatar

Have him lay some bricks, water or no, and he can't stop til he's done so for 8 hours.

InternetCitizen2 ,

what sort of people come up with these laws?

People who don’t work… and certainly never outside.

DanglingFury ,

Who let these people out of the factory?!

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…

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

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.

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.

Vaginal_blood_fart ,

On the upside, fewer Texans. /s

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.

_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)

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