Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has signed legislation barring local and municipal governments from requiring their own heat protections for workers. The law, House Bill 433, blocks local governments…
The bill’s passage comes after the state’s most populous county, Miami-Dade, considered local heat protection rules that would have been among the most stringent in the country. That proposal would have required employers to provide shade, water and 10-minute breaks to workers every two hours on days over a certain heat threshold.
The fact that that would have been among the most stringent protections in the country is incredibly sad. Those protections should be in place nationwide by default at a minimum. Nobody benefits from overheated workers, who are human beings by the way. I feel like it’s so much easier to just be decent and take care of peoples’ basic needs.
You’re a monster if you don’t think your workers deserve to have a few minutes in the shade whenever the fuck they want. People will work harder if they feel like they’re safe and respected. Everybody wins.
I've been told that the armies in many countries use sliding scales of work-rest cycles based on temperature and humidity. For example in Canada, above 35°C you may only have half the crew working 30 minutes on 30 minutes off. Meaning you have 50% of the work being done 100% of the time. Hydration and heat stroke checks are strongly enforced as well. The American army does similar if I've been told correctly.
How American civilians and labourers are not allowed these very same standards is insane to me. People die because of this shit and unions are just okay with this?
US DoD as a whole really, not just US army. There's a whole color code "flag" system following wet bulb temperatures. Might just be if it's on military installations though, not sure about places that are functionally just office buildings.
Okay, sweet. Then that's identical to the system I've been told about for Canadian Forces and similar to what I've seen with other militaries. Crazy how that works. Especially seeing American states that are so pro military and anti-labour fail to meet the basic criteria even the DoD follows.
Maybe NATO related? Then again, the US military is fairly invested in keeping their troops functional. Cant dissuade too many people from joining up, it's the biggest socialist program the country has to offer...
It very well could be NATO doctrine. Militaries figured out real quick that you have to keep troops alive long enough to fight. Whereas it seems civilian workers are treated worse.
Funny how the military, being an innately fascist system (meritocracy) also happens to be the most socialist system many countries have. Room and board, fair wages, a viable path to promotion, medical care all in return for your work and possibly your life.
The military radicalized me to democratic socialism.
It's a shift in that era, you can't just throw it all on them. Other crazy things are boiling in the background, there was weird Cali politics that don't get talked about enough. It was also the era where conservative think tanks came into real power once they realized that you could just throw a ton of money at it, generate a shit load of paper and if you had enough paper people started taking you seriously, no matter if it was based in reality. As long as it was what people wanted to hear.
Nobody benefits from overheated workers, who are human beings by the way.
Guess what? A significant number, if not a majority of the people affected by this will be immigrants. Republicans consider them both replaceable and not human.
I used to be like you, and ultimately I still am - but people seem to need this oppression if we're ever going to make government work for us again.
There is a very dangerous trend of voter apathy, mis/disinformation, and a near complete lack of understanding on the functions of government and democracy.
Until people are actually willing to "work together" (decide we don't need an orphan crushing machine - not actually work hand in hand with everyone else) we kind of deserve the governments we have.
It's plain as day that powerful interests are getting absolutely everything they want, while successfully convincing the general population they shouldn't have job security, health care, social safety nets, education, and an environment that isn't entirely poisoned.
So many people are willingly voting against their interests to hurt someone less well off. Others simply don't care to pay attention, vote, or refuse to apply logic to information if it suits their bias even though it hurts them.
There are huge amounts of bad actors (media in general completely ignoring the obvious rise of facisim and ringing the dinner bell instead of the alarm) doing everything they can to obfuscate the truth and play on people's bias/hate/fear are direct attacks on democracy.
It feels like we're literally experiencing how Hitler rose to power. People are aware of things like project 2025, J6, Christo facisim, bought and paid for supreme Court, outright lies and disinformation campaigns from most media sources, and billionaires dictating to governments.
The general population mostly shrugs, does a finger wag, a head shake, and call it a day.
The far right is organizing globally to allocate funds and think tanks, lobbyists, controlling media, having people of influence throughout government, military, and police. The response? everyone still treats them as disconnected fringe weirdos doing their thing, not something worth dedicating any time to.
You hear Trump supporters saying J6 was an inside ANTIFA FBI job of fake actors - who are completely innocent American heros that are political prisoners and need to be pardoned?
Such cognative dissonance shouldn't be able to exist in nearly half the population, but does due to trusted sources experiencing 0 consequences for pushing obvious lies - so it must be true.
When push comes to shove (shove comes to fist?) maybe the Lazy left will actually show up to resist their oppression, hopefully they unite before it's too late.
It’s hard to understand how what you said - and a county mandating these changes - come together. A city actually voted on this issue, they don’t do that because there’s nothing going on; it means this is a pressing matter in their area. Companies clearly aren’t providing breaks if a city actually votes to mandate this.
Have worked for a few companies where I needed to be out in the heat. All three had mandatory heat breaks for 10-15mins every two hours over 90F. All three also provided water and a shaded area.