[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.

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.

Vaginal_blood_fart ,

On the upside, fewer Texans. /s

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.

DanglingFury ,

Who let these people out of the factory?!

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.

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