Quite a horrific solution to a concern about variance among local governments. Perhaps they truly believe the market will solve work concerns / deaths, despite past evidence that they get brushed aside.
Abbott wants major Texas cities to have as little control as possible since they’re mostly majority democrat. Doubt they’re even thinking about markets solving problems.
This is meant to disempower local jurisdictions which pass laws contrary to Republican aims. Everything from Harris County's motor voter law that let people drive through vote to DAs saying they won't enforce state laws.
See also a law that targets elections in counties over a certain size, of which there is only one and leans Democrat.
More than that, the Real Market (Earth) may solve this issue for good, when Texas regularly hits Wet Bulb Temp due to Climate Change, people will start heading north. So no more Texas.
This is crazy, I am sure the Lawyers are now looking closely to Case Law to e ready when the suite start flying.
Wet bulb temperature would be when the climate gets so hot that perspiration will not cool the body down. It’s a real risk in coming years that will result in death, particularly if it combines with peak AC load to black out a grid for several days.
Heads up: As your link explains, "wet bulb temperature" refers to the method by which the heat is measured, not to the threshold where it becomes intolerable for humans. That threshold is around 90F at 100% humidity, but the actual weather conditions can yield a wet bulb temperature much higher or lower than that.
When wet bulb temperatures get high enough (over human body temperature basically) it becomes deadly to be there. It won't be a matter of politics or housing prices or any of those other issues when people move away because you risk dropping dead just being outside for 15 minutes.
Yeah, but Texas isn't a state known for thinking ahead. For example, those houses need water and electricity...but Texas doesn't care because that's your problem. Meanwhile, they are collecting your taxes.
This would be interesting to see how it plays out and if the market solves this on its own.
While a regulation and mandates usually requires an employer to keep extra records, cause confusion for a lot of smaller companies trying to comply based on each different governments rules, as well as generate more government costs to enforce, the Texas heat is nothing to mess with just as in many states in the south.
I would think an employer who has crews working in the heat would want their crews to be rested and hydrated. Someone handing heavy machinery and passes out, or god forbid, dies on a job would crush that company and cause hell on the general costs of insurance. Also with the number of construction companies, ones that basically tell their staff they can’t drink water I would have to believe quickly will find no one will want to work for.
> ones that basically tell their staff they can’t drink water I would have to believe quickly will find no one will want to work for
I've never done something as difficult as construction, but I was a cashier, sanding still on concrete all day for 8 hours, no fun. I don't think anyone wanted to do that, but there they were doing it anyway. And there they still are every time I go to the store, no stool to sit on, standing still on concrete.
Your belief seems to be that if people don't want to do a thing, they wont, but that doesn't seem to be true when I look around.
There are very very few jobs that people actually want to do - and some places do provide stools. Aldi’s does and they’re notoriously famous for overworking their cashiers as much as they can.
I’d expect to see stools at union grocery stories (but I don’t) so it must not be that big of a complaint.
I have seen that almost all now have those padded floor things.
Aldi probably does this because all grocery cashiers in Germany (home of Aldi) have seats at their registers, and are sitting most of the time. Aldi here also makes them do all sorts of jobs around the store when their registers aren’t needed, so I guess being able to sit at the register is a legal requirement.
The ArbStättV (basically German "rules for places where people work") says in Anhang 3.3 (2):
> (2) Kann die Arbeit ganz oder teilweise sitzend verrichtet werden oder lässt es der Arbeitsablauf zu, sich zeitweise zu setzen, sind den Beschäftigten am Arbeitsplatz Sitzgelegenheiten zur Verfügung zu stellen. Können aus betriebstechnischen Gründen keine Sitzgelegenheiten unmittelbar am Arbeitsplatz aufgestellt werden, obwohl es der Arbeitsablauf zulässt, sich zeitweise zu setzen, müssen den Beschäftigten in der Nähe der Arbeitsplätze Sitzgelegenheiten bereitgestellt werden.
Roughly translated:
> If the work can be done fully or partially while sitting or if the workflow allows intermittent seating, the worker has to have a place to sit at their place of work. If due to work circumstances no seating can be set up directly at the place of work, even though the workflow itself allows for intermittent seating, the worker has to have a place to sit close to his place of work.
I agree, as you say, there are very few jobs people want to do, but they do them anyways. Thus, people will probably continue to work for employers that deny them water breaks. The question is whether we collectively want workers to be treated that way in our society.
Please observe a construction site in Houston (I just drove by some roofers a few minutes ago). There are breaks, but they are much rarer than a "normal" person might expect.
that's scary. thanks for the data point (not joking) because here north of Phoenix it's hot as hell too, yet less hot than at lower elevation like the valley Phoenix is in, so it would be nuts to not respect the climate.
I think you’re vastly underestimating how petty and controlling lower management can be to workers who are much closer to minimum wage.
Go search https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/ for “bathroom” and you’ll find plenty of examples of low wage workers being limited in how long and how often they are allow to relieve themselves.
Does that hold for everyone in your area? Or is it okay for you if other people aren't allowed to take a bathroom break when they want as long as you are allowed to?
My decades of working in very capitalistic companies has taught me two things:
1. Emotions are bigger factor than logic when it comes to business decisions.
2. We often assume wrong on what a “rational” economic choice should be. We believe it would be constructive, but economically beneficial choice for an individual often does not align with the constructive choice.
At this point the argument “the market will solve the problem by its own” is tiring. The whole argument that if a company doesn’t offer X, then people won’t work for it and go to other companies only works when there are others that offer it and don’t cut on Y and Z because they offer X.
There are countless labor issues that historically “weren’t solved by the market” because they were the right thing to do until a law was established.
If we let things solved by the markets with no laws, all of labor will be replaced by children smoking cigarettes who don’t get paid.
I've been asking: When the things that happen in a healthy free market aren't happening, what does that mean? (Maybe too abstract because I haven't got an answer from those I ask.)
True. My full frustration behind this question is that some people oppose regulation saying that the free market will solve the problem, then later when the free market has not solved the problem I ask my question, then they say that it's not something the free market can solve or we just have to wait longer for the solution to arrive (meanwhile, people are suffering or dying). There is a balance to be found here, free markets have their merits, but I do hate to see ideas dismissed because of a hand-wavy claim that the market will fix it.
Maybe another symptom of a broken immigration system? People with tenuous immigration status are easily exploited?
More generally, I think the specific question is: if a worker is choosing between two companies, one which offers water breaks and one which doesn't, wouldn't they choose the first? This makes sense in a case of labor demand >> labor supply.
An alternative question is: if companies face a cost for worker injury, why wouldn't they take better care of workers. But there's huge amounts of evidence (including my wife's as a resident at Ben Taub) that injured workers are discarded into the public health system (with no insurance). And by "discarded" I also mean "lose their job" as well.
Finally, the cities largely bear these costs with only local property and sales taxes to support them, but have found ways to get around barriers erected by undemocratic rural and suburban legislators, and no doubt will continue to.
Depending on this scenario, it could mean the free market doesn't actually have anything at all to do with certain policies or actions. If something goes right people are right on top of claiming it is a win for free markets, but how often is it really the free market at work and not other factors and incentives, be it political, cultural, historical, situational, emotional, or just a local quirk?
(A) there is no singular market. Each city, job, bidding process, and work crew is subject to their own specific market forces and expecting all to behave in an idealized way is silly.
(B) Your assumptions about what happens in a healthy free market are incorrect.
You act as if this is a brave new experiment in deregulation but this is how it already is in many places. Dozens of workers have died from heat stroke in the past few years in Texas while working construction and many cities do not have water break rules (its just those to chose to enact them that are having those laws overturned). It is widely believed that the actual amount of people who die is much higher but due to the insurance reasons you mention those deaths are often categorized as not being related to worker mistreatment. Worth pointing out the people running crews are pretty far removed from their company’s insurance policies so your idea that’s on their mind when deciding whether or not to enforce water breaks seems shaky to me.
Really this case is a "don't whizz on the electric fence" law. That is the law isn't for anybody rational and remotely intelligent. We know that most people don't whizz on electric fences, but the preventable damage done by those stupid enough to do it without the law is a certainty, and having the law makes things smoother. The question "Did they offer the required water breaks." is easier to answer than "Were they negligent?" even if they are synonymous in this case.
I've seen landscapers working outside at a time when the air quality was >300 AQI. The employer required their workers to show up that day and provided no protective equipment, and the customers couldn't reschedule without forfeiting a large down payment.
Sane places have extremely strong OSHA-equivalent agencies with literal criminal penalties for managers whose employees are injured on the job due to site conditions or lack of proper training and safety equipment. I can’t believe anyone advocates for less.
Yeah... Beto does tend to give the impression that he just likes to lose.
Beto was Mayor of El Paso, where there was that horrible shooting a few years back. Beto really latched on to gun control.
And I agree, like we need the most purple Democrat in Texas, or they won't stand a chance.
It's hard to get the left motivated by a candidate that has any shot of winning. And the right just has to sort of default into a win... it's a tough spot.
I really do appreciate that Beto keeps standing up to be a punching bag. But I do wish there was a way to make him a bit more moderate.
Guns, abortion, immigration... they're all just issues that make Republicans show up to vote against a Democrat. Since there are more Republicans than Democrats, it'd be be better to not talk so much about those things I think... But meh, what do I know? It's not like the Democrats would let in a candidate who was silent or moderate on those issues... and if they won't make any concessions, it's pretty hard for Republicans to cross party lines for someone based on personality alone.
Beto lost by 11%... that's not terrible terrible... but even if it was a 1% point loss he still wouldn't get a say in running the state. I don't know what the answer is, but I suspect if we wait 20 years things will be better. Do we have 20 years to wait?
A rapper named Big Pokey died today [1] after two outdoor concert performances: one in Baytown and the second in Beaumont. I'd cite the source but the original Twitter post of him collapsing on stage was taken down. He was a pretty big guy, so I doubt that helped. But in contrast even fit and healthy people being forced to work construction with no break is inhuman. There's no excuse for such brutality.
As a lifelong Texan who now lives in California— Texas has absolutely no problem overriding municipal and county governments, the biggest of which are solidly blue. It’s a pattern they’ve repeated for over 20 years, often more so as a show of force than anything that affects things at a state level:
- Local “bag charges” and “bag bans” on non-reusable plastic bags at grocery stores were outlawed in 2018.
- Anything that has to do with attempts at gun restrictions in cities (auditoriums/malls/etc) gets overridden every year.
- Just this year, the state passed a law with explicit language exclusively targeting its biggest county, Harris County (Houston), disbanding its election commissioner position and that the state AG has the ability to re-call elections in the county if he believes there was “enough fraud”.
There’s so much more, but “local control” is not a term which holds much water in Texas. The other side of the coin is that, unlike California, this philosophy is also reflected in Texas’ zoning codes, and as such it’s much easier and much more consistent across cities to build — developers in cities begin to bemoan when permits take more than 3 months in Texas cities, whereas in Los Angeles years would be the norm
Between being queer and having a trans daughter, I feel far less worried that the government will arbitrarily impoverish, imprison, or kill me, or kidnap my children. Or that one of the locals will take it upon themselves to do so.
What do you think the state will do if you give your children proper trans healthcare? Will they let them stay with you?
Luckily it's not your opinion that is important regarding what healthcare should be done and what shouldn't. The medical consensus is that puberty blockers are an important part of trans healthcare. Denying this to children is equivalent with denying them other healthcare.
Luckily you are mistaken that it is "medical consensus" and your opinion isn't the only valid one.
There are studies that show that hormone blockers don't actually decrease psychological distress (which is why England just said they're going to limit puberty suppressing drugs).
I think it's more interesting that people think children who can't possibly comprehend lifelong implications of most things are being given life altering drugs that don't have proper long term research is a good idea.
> Luckily you are mistaken that it is "medical consensus" and your opinion isn't the only valid one.
Well, it is the only valid one in the sense that there exists a medical consensus, an it is what I described.
> There are studies that show that hormone blockers don't actually decrease psychological distress
Mind sharing those studies?
> (which is why England just said they're going to limit puberty suppressing drugs)
I'm sure it has nothing to do with the conservative government desparately trying to distract their populace from the terrible job they are doing keeping the country running.
> I think it's more interesting that people think children who can't possibly comprehend lifelong implications of most things are being given life altering drugs that don't have proper long term research is a good idea.
Puberty blockers have been researched since the 80s. How much longer do you want studies to be done?
It's also funny that people like you always say "children who can't possibly comprehend lifelong implications of most things are being given life altering drugs", when the whole point of the drugs is to give them time. By delaying puberty those children have time to actually grow up and make an informed decision at the right time. You want to take that ability away from them, you want to condemn them to a lifestyle that is proven to drastically increase suicide rates. I'd like to know - is that a bug for you, or is it a feature?
How are you defining medical consensus? Because if there are conflicting medical opinions and the vast majority don’t agree then I don’t think it’s correct to call it medical consensus.
As for the England thing you can deflect with the politics if you want, but many countries (some that pioneered dysphoria treatments) are cautioning against puberty blockers and that more research needs to be done.
You can use emotional arguments all you want but the science from what I see doesn’t show an overall help with puberty blocking drugs and I don’t think we do have enough long term evidence for people who aren’t hitting early puberty and are taking these drugs. What you’re mentioning from the 80s is like saying it’s totally safe to give everyone who wants chemo chemo because it helps people who have cancer. Puberty blocking drugs are useful in specific use cases, but giving them to kids who feel they are the wrong gender (which by the way, things kids say and what they actually feel are so freaking varied and again, most kids don’t know wtf they’re talking about until they’re much older) does not have full scientific consensus.
How about you provide some links now to the OPs original argument of all the things they mentioned? If not then I think we’re done here as you are just throwing emotional argument after emotional argument as if the choice is between a shitty under researched drug on pre pubescent children who aren’t experiencing early onset puberty (which is the usage you’re talking about from the 80s) vs full on suicide.
> And here is the study that I believe England is using where 43 out of 44 patients didn’t find any help with puberty blockers
I looked into this study, and interestingly the authors come to the opposite conclusion you come to:
> Overall patient experience of changes on GnRHa treatment was positive. We identified no changes in psychological function. Changes in BMD were consistent with suppression of growth. Larger and longer-term prospective studies using a range of designs are needed to more fully quantify the benefits and harms of pubertal suppression in GD.
Given that you're misrepresenting the studies you share, yeah, we're done here.
Considering Texas has categorized it as child abuse, and begun investigations on by-every-metric very loving parents to take custody away from them, even for those who transitioned prior to any law changes (and the fact that Texas has some of the worst foster care outcomes), it’s an objective fact they’re hostile to trans people (youth are people, too)
Also, Texas even specifically cites puberty-blockers (which are reversible…) within the list of punishable offenses, so even Texas qualifies it as trans-healthcare, so your opinion is not particularly relevant.
I have complex relationships with both states, and family roots in each, so my entire life has been spent between the two, and I often visit Texas still.
Both are dysfunctional in completely different ways, and both succeed in very opposite AND similar ways, too.
Regarding “homelessness and crime”, though— I have not noticed a significant difference feeling in safety in either. And in both I lived in the “city” (Dallas and Los Angeles) rather than sprawling suburbs.
I do feel actually a lot more worried in Texas about gun violence when I go back, and find myself always mentally making a note of exit plans in e.g. concert venues or malls back in Texas.
I personally prefer the people in California more than in Texas, but that’s a subjective value judgement. That’s ultimately what keeps me here.
From the outside looking in, the whole of the US is, despite pretty decent split between the executive and legeslative branches, a lot less democratic the at least I believed for a very long time.
I live in Paris, France, and there are at least 5 shops within walking distance from my house that allow that. Not quite as many within walking distance from my work, but still I know one.
Whenever I order takeaway food, I also try to bring my containers.
> Most “bag bans” are a propaganda campaign to frame the last participant in the supply chain as the culprit of everything.
I doubt you meant it this way, but this is the thing that peeves me most about the Republican party continuing to spout on about local control, small government, and personal freedoms. As soon as a locality makes a choice they don't like (bag bans), or a person uses their freedom in a way they don't like (marrying the wrong person, consuming the wrong plant), suddenly the same people are scrambling to explain why those things are exceptions to their principles, because, well they're bad. There's never a stronger argument for why it should be an exception just "we think it's bad". Yet the whole point of these supposed principles is that these decisions should be made locally or personally. Otherwise it's just as valid for someone to say <Republican pet issue> should be decided locally because it's bad.
Yep, I assumed you didn't, which is why I said it. My point was that if pressed, the lawmakers responsible for overriding these "bag bans" would say something similar to you, essentially that bag bans are bad (though I suspect their reasoning would look very different). Yet one can easily find them advocating for local control as a reason why <issue not going their way> shouldn't be decided at the federal/state level. Local control, until "local" does something they don't like.
> My point was that if pressed, the lawmakers responsible for overriding these "bag bans" would say something similar to you, essentially that bag bans are bad (though I suspect their reasoning would look very different).
They would say something similar to me. Except the reasoning would be very different.
So the only similarity is that they would say that it is “bad” (I would say that the ban is pointless per se).
So they wouldn’t say something similar to what I said.
sigh my point was that they would happily use the reasoning "it's bad" as a reason for overriding local government, despite having a long history of preaching about the importance of local government, and using that importance to try to shut down discussion of other issues, as something that should be handled "locally".
It has never been about local control. They've been quite explicit about it: they want state control. That means not federal, not local, and certainly not individual. The state is the unit of decision making where they can exert maximum power.
They're perfectly happy to exert federal control as well, when they can get it. But when they can't, they'll protest that they want state control. They want you to hear it as if that was moving power closer to the individual, but it's diametrically opposed to that. "States' rights" means "not your rights".
Sure, if you don't like local communities being able to make decisions on behalf of their citizens (or put another way: democracy), it must sound great.
I prefer balanced federalism. You obviously can't have local nut jobs passing insane laws but same applies to top down federal powers – IMO this is the real problem in USA across all states. Federal agencies are in some ways more powerful and have unchecked powers – congress leaves a lot of leeway as they can't exactly dictate every single rule/regulation. Unelected people dictate vast majority of the day to day rules/regs.
Texas is midway down the line and California is abysmally at 48th. Folks here are saying "Fascism!", I just find that very funny and ironic; if anything California tramples on people's rights more than any other state. Just look at the cases put forth the 9th circuit.
We should encourage various levels of federalism in different states instead of hurling insults and shutting down the conversation (not you per se, but generally in liberal circles). Everyone is so dug in.
Honestly as a Californian, I want to encourage more competition from other states. It feels like a giant monoculture destroying itself here.
> You obviously can't have local nut jobs passing insane laws but same applies to top down federal powers
Honestly, I struggle with this.
Constitutions, bills of rights, or similar documents in various democracies exist specifically to protect fundamental rights of citizens that can never be trampled on by any level of government.
Beyond those codified rights, why shouldn't local nut jobs be allowed to pass insane laws if that's what people vote for?
If those laws are truly insane, then isn't that what constitutional amendments are for?
To me, the real problem is that those documents are so frozen that it's impossible to renegotiate the contract periodically, and so you end up being forced to hand over strong powers to higher levels of government (see: the voting rights act).
Yeah, sorry, you'll forgive me if I discount this immediately. The Cato Institute has a very specific definition of "freedom" that I fundamentally disagree with.
If you're a small government, anarcho-libertarian, Cato is gonna be your jam.
If you, on the other hand, believe that government plays an important role in protecting freedoms (for example, Cato believes occupational licensing is fundamentally antithetical to "freedom", while I'd argue that it plays a critical role in reducing information asymmetry, thereby protecting the rights of consumers), you're definitely not gonna agree with Cato's approach. I know I don't.
And, by the way, I would expect (hope) Cato would disagree with what Texas is doing, here, as those actions are trampling on the rights of local communities to govern themselves.
Thanks, at least you're honest about your biases. I'll take CATO over anecdotal definitions of "freedom". Discounting it is almost poetic in Trumpian sense; rejecting anything regardless of substance if it doesn't align with his ideology.
You clearly missed the point. Cato's definition is every bit as "anecdotal" as any other. It's not like they ascribe to some perfect, platonic ideal of "freedom". They just picked one set of lines and tradeoffs and definitions of "freedom" while ignoring others.
Those mandatory water break laws confuse me. Is it because businesses are refusing to let their workers take water breaks? Or because workers don’t realize when they need a water break? I find it hard to believe either of those things are generally true*.
*: Perhaps there are some outliers - businesses that genuinely slavedrive their workers, or workers that genuinely can’t tell when they’re about to die. But are those businesses or workers likely to pay much attention to these laws anyway?
In my experience many safety rules are there to force workers to do stuff they don't want to do. Like wear helmets or whatever. Management has to be quite bad before they are the weak link.
Yes. I assume the workers are able to drink any time they want?
"The law will nullify ordinances enacted by Austin in 2010 and Dallas in 2015 that established 10-minute breaks every four hours so that construction workers can drink water and protect themselves from the sun."
Like, every 4th hour? You need to drink maybe every 15th minute if it is hot and you work with your body.
I smell a forced water break to ensure people drink water. But I should be clear that I have no knowledge of Texas construction work conditions.
Ye well if you can't go pee at will a mandated brake every 4 hours won't save you underwear.
I believe "reasonable breaks" is a worker community and employer problem rather than a government one. It depends so much on the situation that general rules get worthless.
But I am all for a loose enough "right to pee and drink" law if it is a practical problem at some employers.
> Ye well if you can't go pee at will a mandated brake every 4 hours won't save you underwear
What? Of course it will. If I have the option to go pee every 4 hours it's a heck of a lot better for me and my underwear than if I only have the option every 10 hours.
I need to pee way more often if it is hot and do phyisical work and I am sweating and I drink enough. Like every hour or 2nd hour. Also you need like 10 min break to the hour.
My point I am trying to make is that construction work with "minimum break" in a sunny Texas can't be functional at all. There has to be more breaks?
But there aren't. Business owners would make less money if people had fewer breaks, so people have to work in sweltering heat and only pee every 4 hours. That's our reality. And the sad part is: if there were no rules for 4 hours, people wouldn't be allowed to pee every 4 hours.
> Ye well if you can't go pee at will a mandated brake every 4 hours won't save you underwear.
So to sum up.
- Demanding a water break every four hours is useless because you need to drink every 15 minutes in this context
- Demanding a pee break every four hours is useless because… everyone has tiny bladders, I guess? This little pitiful rule is not better than having to go whole shifts without being able to pee?
I guess mandated lunch breaks are useless as well since you need to eat every hour at least under such strenuous conditions. Bah.
> But I am all for a loose enough "right to pee and drink" law if it is a practical problem at some employers.
It certainly must be “loose enough”. Thou shalt never inconvenience corporate management.
If there are no businesses that don't let their workers take water breaks, these rules wouldn't change anything. If there is a single business that doesn't let their workers take water breaks, the rules are necessary.
Folks on site often just want to get the job done and can view stuff like regular breaks for water as an obstacle if they feel they don’t need it, whether that’s an individual working through their break or a crew chief who grumbles about people setting tools down for it. Unfortunately people aren’t very good judges of when they need a break for water working in hot conditions. Cal-OSHA has an entire additional training module on heat related illness because it’s such a risk to workers on site. Making it a requirement helps everyone gets the breaks they need and reduces the rate of heat related injury and death on site, that’s it.
I can see the wisdom in that, certainly. It does seem like it’s an OSHA issue so I’m not sure why these laws were passed directly by local government instead of being enforced by OSHA, but I can imagine good reasons - maybe OSHA does not have the power to mandate the specific things needed to make this situation safer (although in the case of “breaks and water” it seems like they probably would?)
I’ve worked in heavily OSHA-regulated industries (complete with “random unannounced safety inspections”, including being interviewed by OSHA). At least in my experience in Australia, OSHA was pretty good about enforcing the more effective and less onerous safety measures (that neither us nor our boss cared much about, but objectively did benefit from, so OSHA did good work there), and not enforcing the less effective and more onerous safety measures (some of which were frankly ridiculous, like requiring three points of contact at all times when climbing a staircase to a tool storage shed - it is quite difficult to carry anything up stairs when you have to have both hands on the railings whenever you lift a foot!)
Perhaps that is the best argument for removing these laws. OSHA has a lot of expertise in managing the balance of safety and productivity, so they should be the ones in charge of deciding on how often and how mandatory heat breaks should be. These laws made by non-OSHA bodies are perhaps too rigid: they could simultaneously be overkill for some situations (like indoor installations) while being wholly insufficient for other situations (like road repair) - and yet the workers, the employees, and the safety inspectors all working together in the goal of safety are unable to adapt them to the situation because it rests with uninvolved (and potentially even uninformed) lawmakers instead. I’d note that from reading the article it doesn’t seem like this is the major motivation behind the attempt to repeal these laws, although something like this is marshaled as an argument.
edit to add: apparently OSHA standards already limit work in 104F conditions to a maximum of 20 minutes per hour and unlimited cool-down breaks whenever the worker requests it, which is far more generous than these water break laws. There is some suggestion that in fact the real purpose of these water break laws were to give companies a way to circumvent the more restrictive OSHA requirements. Things may be much more complicated than they first appeared.
> Perhaps that is the best argument for removing these laws. OSHA has a lot of expertise in managing the balance of safety and productivity, so they should be the ones in charge of deciding on how often and how mandatory heat breaks should be.
That was covered in the article:
--begin quote--
David Michaels, who was head of OSHA from 2009 to 2017, disagreed with the approach of HB 2127 proponents.
“Under OSHA law, it is employers who are responsible to make sure workers are safe,” said Michaels, now a professor at the George Washington University School of Public Health. “And we have compelling evidence that they are doing a very poor job because many workers are injured on the job, especially in Texas.”
Michaels pointed out that OSHA does not have a national standard for heat-related illnesses and issues citations only for over-exposure to heat after an injury or death, but not before that occurs.
“The better solution would be to have a national standard, but since we do not, local ordinances are very important for saving lives,” he said. “Prohibiting these local laws will result in workers being severely hurt or killed.”
--end quote--
> These laws made by non-OSHA bodies are perhaps too rigid: they could simultaneously be overkill for some situations (like indoor installations) while being wholly insufficient for other situations (like road repair)
I don't see how that would realistically be a problem, at least with the laws in Dallas and Austin. Their laws are 10 minute breaks every four hours. It's hard for that to ever be overkill.
If there is some fear that some cities might go farther and actually require so many breaks that it does non-trivially impact then it might be reasonable for the state to step in--but the sane way for the state to step in would be to make 10 minutes every four hours a state law.
Realistically, no, it wouldn’t be a problem for this case. I was charitably trying to come up with the strongest possible argument for the repeal bill. I think it’s a decent argument in the general case - it’s not hard to see how hard-and-fast rules made by politicians serving the two masters of worker safety and popular vote could stack up to cause death by a thousand cuts. Especially if trying to repeal any of those laws gets you / your party mercilessly dunked on for wanting to kill and maim workers, as is happening in this case and would doubtless happen in any other case as well. That’s a recipe for a one-way ratchet. (Again I want to stress that I don’t think the actual motivation for the repeal is pure of heart.)
I don’t know what to make of the former head of OSHA’s statements. Obviously his prior position gives him impeccable integrity but the things he’s quoted as saying just don’t make any sense. Like, OSHA absolutely does have national standards for heat-related illnesses, this is trivially verifiable, googling “OSHA heat” turns up dozens and dozens of info pages, safety posters, etc. on the matter. The only way I can make sense of his statement is by assuming there is some technicality regarding what counts as a “national standard”, or perhaps “heat-related illness” is a newly introduced category that is parallel to “heat exposure”, such that OSHA has plenty of regulations on heat exposure but none on heat-related illnesses. But that is deliberate deception, why would the former head of OSHA be deliberately deceptive about OSHA? Maybe this is one small comment mined out of a much larger conversation and the journalist is to blame?
Something just doesn’t seem right about any of this, so I am going to remain skeptical of the surface-level narrative that local ordinances are reasonable and this bill is trying to screw over or even kill workers in order to save businesses some money. (Please, once again, note I am also continuing to remain skeptical of the motivations of the repeal bill as well!)
Your assumptions are just mistaken. I got my California OSHA 10 construction safety card within the last few months, and heat related illness prevention - which is not somehow semantically separate from heat exposure - is not part of federal OSHA guidelines. It is an additional part of California’s state guidelines, and that’s probably why you see posters on google. Texas could add similar requirements at the state level, but like many states, they haven’t. I watched a whole slideshow module, and passed the quiz, specifically about how the heat safety regulations I was being certified for were California state specific!
I am certainly in the camp that Federal OSHA should be amended to include heat safety, but I can see how that would be challenging to do with America’s varied climates. Australia maybe and probably is different but whatever you experienced in Australia won’t be an accurate reference in the US, “OSHA” is the occupational safety and health administration of the United States. Anecdotally, I’ve heard australia has stricter construction workplace safety laws.
The state bill nullifies all local ordinances that introduce mandatory breaks, and that will include ordinances requiring construction workers get water breaks.
> Federal OSHA enforces heat-related safety under the Occupational Safety and Health Act's general duty clause, which requires employers to provide workplaces that are "free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm to employees."
> There is no heat-related or heat stress standard in place. Instead, federal OSHA has traditionally enforced heat-related hazards through its General Duty Clause.
I will happily admit I was surprised to learn that US federal OSHA does not have specific heat-related illness regulations and have been instead making do with Commerce Clause-style general regulation to enforce heat safety instead. But I was also correct when I said there is plenty of US federal (not state-specific) OSHA material on heat-related illnesses - that osha link above has a detailed breakdown including worked examples on how to use Wet Bulb Globe Temperature testing equipment to measure heat stress risks, tables of Threshold Limit Values, etc.
I also found a convincing explanation for my confusion as to why the former head of OSHA would say that OSHA does not have a national standard for heat-related illnesses when they empirically do have lots of specific material on assessing and managing heat risk: US federal OSHA is (as of October 2021) working on instituting a comprehensive national heat standard https://www.regulations.gov/document/OSHA-2021-0009-0001 and that seems to be why the lack of a national standard was emphasized - it is no doubt a mammoth and expensive task, and it is the natural order of bureaucracy that any such task must be continually justified to protect from bean counter cuts.
Is this specific regulation really an issue? I understand heat related deaths do occur but is it because they are not allowed water breaks every 4!! hours?
If you're working out there in 115+ heat index like June, July, August, September bring you're going to need a water break every 20-40 minutes, especially decked out in full PPE. I don't see overseers out there driving these Hispanic laborers to work 8 hours straight. They can take a break whenever they want, after all who is going to stop them. They need the job done right?
This seems like the type of regulation pushed by those who never have worked out in the heat before. Who in their right mind would even waste time passing a mandatory once every 4 hour water break? That's useless.
I agree the common sense around this issue seems to be lacking. I think this issue is more of a political lightning rod for those who "hate workers" vs those who "want government to control everything."
I'm not some construction expert here in Texas but from what I observe most laborers are working under a sub contractor or levels of sub contractor and are usually paid a daily rate.
> That kind of heat exhaustion is common for construction workers in Texas, nearly 40 percent of whom say they are not given regular breaks on job sites, even in the heat of the summer, according to surveys by the Workers Defense Project.
...
> According to a Workers Defense Project report from 2017, more than a third of workers in Houston reported that they did not receive any rest breaks during the past work week
Seriously, did you think these laws--which are on the books right now--simply come out of nowhere?
> The worker in the article doesn’t say that a foreman forced her to work without a break explicitly
Okay, so because it doesn't specifically use those words, you'll just disregard the statistics cited?
And that's ignoring the fact that worker intimidation is rarely so explicit.
Not much point continuing to discuss if the confirmation bias is that strong.
> The article also links a report I can’t download due to too many redirects so I’m not able to determine how many workers were surveyed etc
Does that matter?
Your claim is it never happens. I cited a study that says it clearly does.
So now we're at the nitpicking the statistical analysis phase? Oh no, maybe it's actually 30% plus or minus 10% 19 times out of 20 because of sampling errors and that somehow invalidates the fundamental point that yes, in fact labourers do experience this type of abuse? Thanks, I'll pass.
Once again: did you think these bylaws got passed for no reason at all?
Edit: but you know, here, I'll do the work, anyway, and give you the 2023 report:
They surveyed over 1,000 labourers, by far enough to generate a valid statistical sample. 28% of US born workers reported no breaks. Among undocumented workers that number rose to 46%.
Yeah I see the 2023 report but still can’t seem to find the actual source for the data. Which is unfortunate.
Also:
> Your claim is it never happens
I did not make that claim. Please see my literal written words and do not misconstrue them to fit an imaginary argument we aren’t actually having. I think you are getting far too overexcited
> Please see my literal written words and do not misconstrue them to fit an imaginary argument we aren’t actually having.
Then what exactly are you trying to achieve?
Because you thus far seem unwilling to acknowledge that these laws have been passed to solve a real labour abuse problem, and that is, of course, the original disagreement that spawned this entire thread:
> I don't see overseers out there driving these Hispanic laborers to work 8 hours straight.
...
> I haven’t seen it either. Where have you seen or heard about it?
The bill imposes novel limitations on what regulations municipalities are allowed to enact/enforce. You won't find the impact of the bill in its text -- to find that, you'd need to read the municipal regulations that would be superceded. Mandatory water breaks (a paltry 10 minutes each 4 hours) are but one example.
"Rest or coffee breaks, defined as 20 minutes or less, are compensable hours worked under 29 C.F.R. 785.18, since they are regarded as being for the benefit of both the employer and the employee."
Also... can we talk about how f'd it is that someone who wants smaller government would go out of his way to ban small local government from governing?
"You're doing it wrong at the local level, let me run things at the state level... but that same logic doesn't apply to the federal government!"
It takes some real mental hoolahooping to make that work.
Okay guys, focus on the real issue here, which is Texas state government is Republican, but every major Texas city is Democratic.
So rural Texas bumpkins want to impose a rule of law on their economic engines (while conveniently decrying interference from federal agencies on things like policing, voting rights, LGBTQ discrimination, border policy, etc)
This is two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner, while the wolves cry about "big government" and having agendas forced on them.
Economic activity does not equate to political worth.
Although cities may be the economic hubs it doesn't equate to the political worth or value of an individuals vote. Everyone regardless of where they live or their economic contribution should be entitled to an equal vote in a fair and democratic society.
One of the original concerns about direct democracy is the potential it has to allow a majority of voters to trample the rights of minorities. This is why we have minority protections.
The problem is that Texas has been gerrymandered to the point that Democrats in the cities don't have an "an equal vote", and are being dictated to by what the see as rural rubes.
Cities have more people and therefore have more votes. What Republicans have been doing is nullifying those votes. Meaning people living in rural areas have more voting power than people living in cities. It's both entertaining and annoying watching Republicans trying to defend this system.
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 195 ms ] threadThis is meant to disempower local jurisdictions which pass laws contrary to Republican aims. Everything from Harris County's motor voter law that let people drive through vote to DAs saying they won't enforce state laws.
See also a law that targets elections in counties over a certain size, of which there is only one and leans Democrat.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/28/us/texas-voting-laws-harr...
This is crazy, I am sure the Lawyers are now looking closely to Case Law to e ready when the suite start flying.
If Texas is such a terrible place to live, why are so many people moving there?
Texas is not there yet, but IIRC this has already happened in India and parts of the Middle East. https://www.kxan.com/news/national-news/what-is-a-wet-bulb-t...
Wet bulb temp is technically “deadly” in Houston every year with relatively few deaths.
Because its legal to build housing there, unlike much of the country.
While a regulation and mandates usually requires an employer to keep extra records, cause confusion for a lot of smaller companies trying to comply based on each different governments rules, as well as generate more government costs to enforce, the Texas heat is nothing to mess with just as in many states in the south.
I would think an employer who has crews working in the heat would want their crews to be rested and hydrated. Someone handing heavy machinery and passes out, or god forbid, dies on a job would crush that company and cause hell on the general costs of insurance. Also with the number of construction companies, ones that basically tell their staff they can’t drink water I would have to believe quickly will find no one will want to work for.
I've never done something as difficult as construction, but I was a cashier, sanding still on concrete all day for 8 hours, no fun. I don't think anyone wanted to do that, but there they were doing it anyway. And there they still are every time I go to the store, no stool to sit on, standing still on concrete.
Your belief seems to be that if people don't want to do a thing, they wont, but that doesn't seem to be true when I look around.
I’d expect to see stools at union grocery stories (but I don’t) so it must not be that big of a complaint.
I have seen that almost all now have those padded floor things.
> (2) Kann die Arbeit ganz oder teilweise sitzend verrichtet werden oder lässt es der Arbeitsablauf zu, sich zeitweise zu setzen, sind den Beschäftigten am Arbeitsplatz Sitzgelegenheiten zur Verfügung zu stellen. Können aus betriebstechnischen Gründen keine Sitzgelegenheiten unmittelbar am Arbeitsplatz aufgestellt werden, obwohl es der Arbeitsablauf zulässt, sich zeitweise zu setzen, müssen den Beschäftigten in der Nähe der Arbeitsplätze Sitzgelegenheiten bereitgestellt werden.
Roughly translated:
> If the work can be done fully or partially while sitting or if the workflow allows intermittent seating, the worker has to have a place to sit at their place of work. If due to work circumstances no seating can be set up directly at the place of work, even though the workflow itself allows for intermittent seating, the worker has to have a place to sit close to his place of work.
Very roughly translated, sorry.
https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/arbst_ttv_2004/anhang.htm...
Is it maybe the point that not every commonsense-ism needs legislation backing it, IF it is truly respected and honored universally as common sense.
Or is this a news item because there are tyrants who forbid workers from drinking water and taking bathroom breaks? If so, that's bizarre and sad.
Go search https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/ for “bathroom” and you’ll find plenty of examples of low wage workers being limited in how long and how often they are allow to relieve themselves.
1. Emotions are bigger factor than logic when it comes to business decisions.
2. We often assume wrong on what a “rational” economic choice should be. We believe it would be constructive, but economically beneficial choice for an individual often does not align with the constructive choice.
There are countless labor issues that historically “weren’t solved by the market” because they were the right thing to do until a law was established.
If we let things solved by the markets with no laws, all of labor will be replaced by children smoking cigarettes who don’t get paid.
More generally, I think the specific question is: if a worker is choosing between two companies, one which offers water breaks and one which doesn't, wouldn't they choose the first? This makes sense in a case of labor demand >> labor supply.
An alternative question is: if companies face a cost for worker injury, why wouldn't they take better care of workers. But there's huge amounts of evidence (including my wife's as a resident at Ben Taub) that injured workers are discarded into the public health system (with no insurance). And by "discarded" I also mean "lose their job" as well.
Finally, the cities largely bear these costs with only local property and sales taxes to support them, but have found ways to get around barriers erected by undemocratic rural and suburban legislators, and no doubt will continue to.
(A) there is no singular market. Each city, job, bidding process, and work crew is subject to their own specific market forces and expecting all to behave in an idealized way is silly.
(B) Your assumptions about what happens in a healthy free market are incorrect.
There's countless examples that the market doesn't solve everything on its own. It's naive to think it will be different this time.
Safety need to be regulated.
https://www.hrmonline.com.au/topics/health-wellbeing-and-saf...
Beto was Mayor of El Paso, where there was that horrible shooting a few years back. Beto really latched on to gun control.
And I agree, like we need the most purple Democrat in Texas, or they won't stand a chance.
It's hard to get the left motivated by a candidate that has any shot of winning. And the right just has to sort of default into a win... it's a tough spot.
I really do appreciate that Beto keeps standing up to be a punching bag. But I do wish there was a way to make him a bit more moderate.
Guns, abortion, immigration... they're all just issues that make Republicans show up to vote against a Democrat. Since there are more Republicans than Democrats, it'd be be better to not talk so much about those things I think... But meh, what do I know? It's not like the Democrats would let in a candidate who was silent or moderate on those issues... and if they won't make any concessions, it's pretty hard for Republicans to cross party lines for someone based on personality alone.
Beto lost by 11%... that's not terrible terrible... but even if it was a 1% point loss he still wouldn't get a say in running the state. I don't know what the answer is, but I suspect if we wait 20 years things will be better. Do we have 20 years to wait?
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/11/08/us/elections/...
[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/houston/comments/14ciker/rip_big_po...
The heat puts a lot of stress on the body. Any existing issues are bound to come out as the heart circulates blood to try and cool down.
American Heart Association has some advice for staying alive in the heat... seems like doctors should be able to help write these into law.
https://newsroom.heart.org/news/protect-your-heart-in-the-he...
- Local “bag charges” and “bag bans” on non-reusable plastic bags at grocery stores were outlawed in 2018.
- Anything that has to do with attempts at gun restrictions in cities (auditoriums/malls/etc) gets overridden every year.
- Just this year, the state passed a law with explicit language exclusively targeting its biggest county, Harris County (Houston), disbanding its election commissioner position and that the state AG has the ability to re-call elections in the county if he believes there was “enough fraud”.
There’s so much more, but “local control” is not a term which holds much water in Texas. The other side of the coin is that, unlike California, this philosophy is also reflected in Texas’ zoning codes, and as such it’s much easier and much more consistent across cities to build — developers in cities begin to bemoan when permits take more than 3 months in Texas cities, whereas in Los Angeles years would be the norm
The amount of homeless drugs and crime in the Bay made me immediately regret moving, but stayed for the $$$ for a bit.
Texas does many stupid things but so does CA and on top of that CA is expensive as hell to live in
I don't care if the rent in Texas was negative.
If you think that is Texas being anti trans then so be it I guess
Luckily it's not your opinion that is important regarding what healthcare should be done and what shouldn't. The medical consensus is that puberty blockers are an important part of trans healthcare. Denying this to children is equivalent with denying them other healthcare.
There are studies that show that hormone blockers don't actually decrease psychological distress (which is why England just said they're going to limit puberty suppressing drugs).
I think it's more interesting that people think children who can't possibly comprehend lifelong implications of most things are being given life altering drugs that don't have proper long term research is a good idea.
Well, it is the only valid one in the sense that there exists a medical consensus, an it is what I described.
> There are studies that show that hormone blockers don't actually decrease psychological distress
Mind sharing those studies?
> (which is why England just said they're going to limit puberty suppressing drugs)
I'm sure it has nothing to do with the conservative government desparately trying to distract their populace from the terrible job they are doing keeping the country running.
> I think it's more interesting that people think children who can't possibly comprehend lifelong implications of most things are being given life altering drugs that don't have proper long term research is a good idea.
Puberty blockers have been researched since the 80s. How much longer do you want studies to be done?
It's also funny that people like you always say "children who can't possibly comprehend lifelong implications of most things are being given life altering drugs", when the whole point of the drugs is to give them time. By delaying puberty those children have time to actually grow up and make an informed decision at the right time. You want to take that ability away from them, you want to condemn them to a lifestyle that is proven to drastically increase suicide rates. I'd like to know - is that a bug for you, or is it a feature?
As for the England thing you can deflect with the politics if you want, but many countries (some that pioneered dysphoria treatments) are cautioning against puberty blockers and that more research needs to be done.
https://ukom.no/rapporter/pasientsikkerhet-for-barn-og-unge-...
https://www.academie-medecine.fr/la-medecine-face-a-la-trans...
https://cass.independent-review.uk/publications/interim-repo...
And here is the study that I believe England is using where 43 out of 44 patients didn’t find any help with puberty blockers
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
And here is a paper critiquing studies that have been done and accusing them of bias to promote a viewpoint
https://accpjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.100...
You can use emotional arguments all you want but the science from what I see doesn’t show an overall help with puberty blocking drugs and I don’t think we do have enough long term evidence for people who aren’t hitting early puberty and are taking these drugs. What you’re mentioning from the 80s is like saying it’s totally safe to give everyone who wants chemo chemo because it helps people who have cancer. Puberty blocking drugs are useful in specific use cases, but giving them to kids who feel they are the wrong gender (which by the way, things kids say and what they actually feel are so freaking varied and again, most kids don’t know wtf they’re talking about until they’re much older) does not have full scientific consensus.
How about you provide some links now to the OPs original argument of all the things they mentioned? If not then I think we’re done here as you are just throwing emotional argument after emotional argument as if the choice is between a shitty under researched drug on pre pubescent children who aren’t experiencing early onset puberty (which is the usage you’re talking about from the 80s) vs full on suicide.
I looked into this study, and interestingly the authors come to the opposite conclusion you come to:
> Overall patient experience of changes on GnRHa treatment was positive. We identified no changes in psychological function. Changes in BMD were consistent with suppression of growth. Larger and longer-term prospective studies using a range of designs are needed to more fully quantify the benefits and harms of pubertal suppression in GD.
Given that you're misrepresenting the studies you share, yeah, we're done here.
Also, Texas even specifically cites puberty-blockers (which are reversible…) within the list of punishable offenses, so even Texas qualifies it as trans-healthcare, so your opinion is not particularly relevant.
https://www.npr.org/2022/05/13/1098779201/texas-supreme-cour...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/23/texas-tra...
Both are dysfunctional in completely different ways, and both succeed in very opposite AND similar ways, too.
Regarding “homelessness and crime”, though— I have not noticed a significant difference feeling in safety in either. And in both I lived in the “city” (Dallas and Los Angeles) rather than sprawling suburbs.
I do feel actually a lot more worried in Texas about gun violence when I go back, and find myself always mentally making a note of exit plans in e.g. concert venues or malls back in Texas.
I personally prefer the people in California more than in Texas, but that’s a subjective value judgement. That’s ultimately what keeps me here.
* https://www.vermontpublic.org/vpr-news/2018-03-16/meet-the-c...
* https://www.npr.org/2018/04/07/600482792/you-couldn-t-get-el...
Also, TIL...
Most “bag bans” are a propaganda campaign to frame the last participant in the supply chain as the culprit of everything.
I’ve heard of stores that let you bring your own glass jars to fill up on e.g. almonds. That sounds more practical.
Whenever I order takeaway food, I also try to bring my containers.
I doubt you meant it this way, but this is the thing that peeves me most about the Republican party continuing to spout on about local control, small government, and personal freedoms. As soon as a locality makes a choice they don't like (bag bans), or a person uses their freedom in a way they don't like (marrying the wrong person, consuming the wrong plant), suddenly the same people are scrambling to explain why those things are exceptions to their principles, because, well they're bad. There's never a stronger argument for why it should be an exception just "we think it's bad". Yet the whole point of these supposed principles is that these decisions should be made locally or personally. Otherwise it's just as valid for someone to say <Republican pet issue> should be decided locally because it's bad.
An aside.
They would say something similar to me. Except the reasoning would be very different.
So the only similarity is that they would say that it is “bad” (I would say that the ban is pointless per se).
So they wouldn’t say something similar to what I said.
Next up: “Wars are bad”. Did avgcorrection say that? Or a Libertarian? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZITP93pqtdQ
Call it an aside to your aside if you want.
They're perfectly happy to exert federal control as well, when they can get it. But when they can't, they'll protest that they want state control. They want you to hear it as if that was moving power closer to the individual, but it's diametrically opposed to that. "States' rights" means "not your rights".
In regards to freedom, New Hamsphire/Florida ranks #1 or #2 usually in the freedom index across the board: https://cdn.freedominthe50states.org/download/2021/print-edi...
Texas is midway down the line and California is abysmally at 48th. Folks here are saying "Fascism!", I just find that very funny and ironic; if anything California tramples on people's rights more than any other state. Just look at the cases put forth the 9th circuit.
We should encourage various levels of federalism in different states instead of hurling insults and shutting down the conversation (not you per se, but generally in liberal circles). Everyone is so dug in.
Honestly as a Californian, I want to encourage more competition from other states. It feels like a giant monoculture destroying itself here.
Honestly, I struggle with this.
Constitutions, bills of rights, or similar documents in various democracies exist specifically to protect fundamental rights of citizens that can never be trampled on by any level of government.
Beyond those codified rights, why shouldn't local nut jobs be allowed to pass insane laws if that's what people vote for?
If those laws are truly insane, then isn't that what constitutional amendments are for?
To me, the real problem is that those documents are so frozen that it's impossible to renegotiate the contract periodically, and so you end up being forced to hand over strong powers to higher levels of government (see: the voting rights act).
> In regards to freedom, New Hamsphire/Florida ranks #1 or #2 usually in the freedom index across the board: https://cdn.freedominthe50states.org/download/2021/print-edi...
Yeah, sorry, you'll forgive me if I discount this immediately. The Cato Institute has a very specific definition of "freedom" that I fundamentally disagree with.
If you're a small government, anarcho-libertarian, Cato is gonna be your jam.
If you, on the other hand, believe that government plays an important role in protecting freedoms (for example, Cato believes occupational licensing is fundamentally antithetical to "freedom", while I'd argue that it plays a critical role in reducing information asymmetry, thereby protecting the rights of consumers), you're definitely not gonna agree with Cato's approach. I know I don't.
And, by the way, I would expect (hope) Cato would disagree with what Texas is doing, here, as those actions are trampling on the rights of local communities to govern themselves.
*: Perhaps there are some outliers - businesses that genuinely slavedrive their workers, or workers that genuinely can’t tell when they’re about to die. But are those businesses or workers likely to pay much attention to these laws anyway?
"The law will nullify ordinances enacted by Austin in 2010 and Dallas in 2015 that established 10-minute breaks every four hours so that construction workers can drink water and protect themselves from the sun."
Like, every 4th hour? You need to drink maybe every 15th minute if it is hot and you work with your body.
I smell a forced water break to ensure people drink water. But I should be clear that I have no knowledge of Texas construction work conditions.
What about on the other end (i.e., peeing)? "14-hour days and no bathroom breaks: Amazon's overworked delivery drivers":
* https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/mar/11/amazon-de...
"Amazon strikes: Workers claim their toilet breaks are timed":
* https://www.bbc.com/news/business-64384287
I wouldn't put it past some employers preventing water intake if water 'outtake' is a documented problem.
I believe "reasonable breaks" is a worker community and employer problem rather than a government one. It depends so much on the situation that general rules get worthless.
But I am all for a loose enough "right to pee and drink" law if it is a practical problem at some employers.
What? Of course it will. If I have the option to go pee every 4 hours it's a heck of a lot better for me and my underwear than if I only have the option every 10 hours.
My point I am trying to make is that construction work with "minimum break" in a sunny Texas can't be functional at all. There has to be more breaks?
So to sum up.
- Demanding a water break every four hours is useless because you need to drink every 15 minutes in this context
- Demanding a pee break every four hours is useless because… everyone has tiny bladders, I guess? This little pitiful rule is not better than having to go whole shifts without being able to pee?
I guess mandated lunch breaks are useless as well since you need to eat every hour at least under such strenuous conditions. Bah.
> But I am all for a loose enough "right to pee and drink" law if it is a practical problem at some employers.
It certainly must be “loose enough”. Thou shalt never inconvenience corporate management.
There is no reason to remove them.
I’ve worked in heavily OSHA-regulated industries (complete with “random unannounced safety inspections”, including being interviewed by OSHA). At least in my experience in Australia, OSHA was pretty good about enforcing the more effective and less onerous safety measures (that neither us nor our boss cared much about, but objectively did benefit from, so OSHA did good work there), and not enforcing the less effective and more onerous safety measures (some of which were frankly ridiculous, like requiring three points of contact at all times when climbing a staircase to a tool storage shed - it is quite difficult to carry anything up stairs when you have to have both hands on the railings whenever you lift a foot!)
Perhaps that is the best argument for removing these laws. OSHA has a lot of expertise in managing the balance of safety and productivity, so they should be the ones in charge of deciding on how often and how mandatory heat breaks should be. These laws made by non-OSHA bodies are perhaps too rigid: they could simultaneously be overkill for some situations (like indoor installations) while being wholly insufficient for other situations (like road repair) - and yet the workers, the employees, and the safety inspectors all working together in the goal of safety are unable to adapt them to the situation because it rests with uninvolved (and potentially even uninformed) lawmakers instead. I’d note that from reading the article it doesn’t seem like this is the major motivation behind the attempt to repeal these laws, although something like this is marshaled as an argument.
edit to add: apparently OSHA standards already limit work in 104F conditions to a maximum of 20 minutes per hour and unlimited cool-down breaks whenever the worker requests it, which is far more generous than these water break laws. There is some suggestion that in fact the real purpose of these water break laws were to give companies a way to circumvent the more restrictive OSHA requirements. Things may be much more complicated than they first appeared.
That was covered in the article:
--begin quote--
David Michaels, who was head of OSHA from 2009 to 2017, disagreed with the approach of HB 2127 proponents.
“Under OSHA law, it is employers who are responsible to make sure workers are safe,” said Michaels, now a professor at the George Washington University School of Public Health. “And we have compelling evidence that they are doing a very poor job because many workers are injured on the job, especially in Texas.”
Michaels pointed out that OSHA does not have a national standard for heat-related illnesses and issues citations only for over-exposure to heat after an injury or death, but not before that occurs.
“The better solution would be to have a national standard, but since we do not, local ordinances are very important for saving lives,” he said. “Prohibiting these local laws will result in workers being severely hurt or killed.”
--end quote--
> These laws made by non-OSHA bodies are perhaps too rigid: they could simultaneously be overkill for some situations (like indoor installations) while being wholly insufficient for other situations (like road repair)
I don't see how that would realistically be a problem, at least with the laws in Dallas and Austin. Their laws are 10 minute breaks every four hours. It's hard for that to ever be overkill.
If there is some fear that some cities might go farther and actually require so many breaks that it does non-trivially impact then it might be reasonable for the state to step in--but the sane way for the state to step in would be to make 10 minutes every four hours a state law.
I don’t know what to make of the former head of OSHA’s statements. Obviously his prior position gives him impeccable integrity but the things he’s quoted as saying just don’t make any sense. Like, OSHA absolutely does have national standards for heat-related illnesses, this is trivially verifiable, googling “OSHA heat” turns up dozens and dozens of info pages, safety posters, etc. on the matter. The only way I can make sense of his statement is by assuming there is some technicality regarding what counts as a “national standard”, or perhaps “heat-related illness” is a newly introduced category that is parallel to “heat exposure”, such that OSHA has plenty of regulations on heat exposure but none on heat-related illnesses. But that is deliberate deception, why would the former head of OSHA be deliberately deceptive about OSHA? Maybe this is one small comment mined out of a much larger conversation and the journalist is to blame?
Something just doesn’t seem right about any of this, so I am going to remain skeptical of the surface-level narrative that local ordinances are reasonable and this bill is trying to screw over or even kill workers in order to save businesses some money. (Please, once again, note I am also continuing to remain skeptical of the motivations of the repeal bill as well!)
You can just check the federal OSHA regulations for yourself: https://www.osha.gov/laws-regs/regulations/standardnumber/19...
I am certainly in the camp that Federal OSHA should be amended to include heat safety, but I can see how that would be challenging to do with America’s varied climates. Australia maybe and probably is different but whatever you experienced in Australia won’t be an accurate reference in the US, “OSHA” is the occupational safety and health administration of the United States. Anecdotally, I’ve heard australia has stricter construction workplace safety laws.
The state bill nullifies all local ordinances that introduce mandatory breaks, and that will include ordinances requiring construction workers get water breaks.
> Federal OSHA enforces heat-related safety under the Occupational Safety and Health Act's general duty clause, which requires employers to provide workplaces that are "free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm to employees."
https://www.fisherphillips.com/news-insights/osha-unveils-pr... agrees:
> There is no heat-related or heat stress standard in place. Instead, federal OSHA has traditionally enforced heat-related hazards through its General Duty Clause.
I will happily admit I was surprised to learn that US federal OSHA does not have specific heat-related illness regulations and have been instead making do with Commerce Clause-style general regulation to enforce heat safety instead. But I was also correct when I said there is plenty of US federal (not state-specific) OSHA material on heat-related illnesses - that osha link above has a detailed breakdown including worked examples on how to use Wet Bulb Globe Temperature testing equipment to measure heat stress risks, tables of Threshold Limit Values, etc.
I also found a convincing explanation for my confusion as to why the former head of OSHA would say that OSHA does not have a national standard for heat-related illnesses when they empirically do have lots of specific material on assessing and managing heat risk: US federal OSHA is (as of October 2021) working on instituting a comprehensive national heat standard https://www.regulations.gov/document/OSHA-2021-0009-0001 and that seems to be why the lack of a national standard was emphasized - it is no doubt a mammoth and expensive task, and it is the natural order of bureaucracy that any such task must be continually justified to protect from bean counter cuts.
If you're working out there in 115+ heat index like June, July, August, September bring you're going to need a water break every 20-40 minutes, especially decked out in full PPE. I don't see overseers out there driving these Hispanic laborers to work 8 hours straight. They can take a break whenever they want, after all who is going to stop them. They need the job done right?
This seems like the type of regulation pushed by those who never have worked out in the heat before. Who in their right mind would even waste time passing a mandatory once every 4 hour water break? That's useless.
Are you joking?
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/Even...
> That kind of heat exhaustion is common for construction workers in Texas, nearly 40 percent of whom say they are not given regular breaks on job sites, even in the heat of the summer, according to surveys by the Workers Defense Project.
...
> According to a Workers Defense Project report from 2017, more than a third of workers in Houston reported that they did not receive any rest breaks during the past work week
Seriously, did you think these laws--which are on the books right now--simply come out of nowhere?
> Cruz, 46, said she had not been able to take a break all day because of the pressure to finish the job
The article also links a report I can’t download due to too many redirects so I’m not able to determine how many workers were surveyed etc
Okay, so because it doesn't specifically use those words, you'll just disregard the statistics cited?
And that's ignoring the fact that worker intimidation is rarely so explicit.
Not much point continuing to discuss if the confirmation bias is that strong.
> The article also links a report I can’t download due to too many redirects so I’m not able to determine how many workers were surveyed etc
Does that matter?
Your claim is it never happens. I cited a study that says it clearly does.
So now we're at the nitpicking the statistical analysis phase? Oh no, maybe it's actually 30% plus or minus 10% 19 times out of 20 because of sampling errors and that somehow invalidates the fundamental point that yes, in fact labourers do experience this type of abuse? Thanks, I'll pass.
Once again: did you think these bylaws got passed for no reason at all?
Edit: but you know, here, I'll do the work, anyway, and give you the 2023 report:
https://workersdefense.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Build-...
They surveyed over 1,000 labourers, by far enough to generate a valid statistical sample. 28% of US born workers reported no breaks. Among undocumented workers that number rose to 46%.
Also:
> Your claim is it never happens
I did not make that claim. Please see my literal written words and do not misconstrue them to fit an imaginary argument we aren’t actually having. I think you are getting far too overexcited
Then what exactly are you trying to achieve?
Because you thus far seem unwilling to acknowledge that these laws have been passed to solve a real labour abuse problem, and that is, of course, the original disagreement that spawned this entire thread:
> I don't see overseers out there driving these Hispanic laborers to work 8 hours straight.
...
> I haven’t seen it either. Where have you seen or heard about it?
https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/88R/billtext/pdf/HB02127F....
Maybe I didn't read it properly but water breaks are not under attack
https://efte.twc.texas.gov/d_breaks.html
"Rest or coffee breaks, defined as 20 minutes or less, are compensable hours worked under 29 C.F.R. 785.18, since they are regarded as being for the benefit of both the employer and the employee."
This is 29 C.F.R. 785.18, a federal regulation
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-29/subtitle-B/chapter-V/s...
"You're doing it wrong at the local level, let me run things at the state level... but that same logic doesn't apply to the federal government!"
It takes some real mental hoolahooping to make that work.
So rural Texas bumpkins want to impose a rule of law on their economic engines (while conveniently decrying interference from federal agencies on things like policing, voting rights, LGBTQ discrimination, border policy, etc)
This is two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner, while the wolves cry about "big government" and having agendas forced on them.
Although cities may be the economic hubs it doesn't equate to the political worth or value of an individuals vote. Everyone regardless of where they live or their economic contribution should be entitled to an equal vote in a fair and democratic society.
One of the original concerns about direct democracy is the potential it has to allow a majority of voters to trample the rights of minorities. This is why we have minority protections.
The issue is city populations are the minority here. The laws they passed only apply to their cities.
Their right to self govern is being overridden by the majority state legislature.
You are literally arguing my point but you don't seem to understand whose protections are being trampled on by whom.
Don't forget, companies kill people to increase their profits. There is nothing humane or good about our economy.