Texans Die from Heat Exhaustion After Governor Bans Water Breaks
Texans Die from Heat Exhaustion After Governor Bans Water Breaks
House Bill 2127 pre-empts municipalities from enacting legislation in eight areas—with predictable results.
House Bill 2127 pre-empts municipalities from enacting legislation in eight areas—with predictable results.
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This bill bans local ordinances on water breaks, but there are still federal (and likely state) laws that still require it. You can see right on OSHA's site here.
OSHA Standards require an employer to provide potable water in the workplace and permit employees to drink it. Potable water includes tap water that is safe for drinking. Employers cannot require employees to pay for water that is provided. An employer does not have to provide bottled water if potable water is available. See OSHA's sanitation standard for more information.
Why can't people report on GOP bills objectively, rather than misconstruing them as hard as possible?
This "article" also doesn't mention a single death due to being deprived of a water break. There's zero mention of anyone asking for and being denied water. Some of the deaths were hikers. It's "water breaks were banned" and then "people died," and nobody's reading the article to find out those two statements are tied together for sensationalism alone. Nobody was denied a water break and died because of it. Lame journalism.
The heat deaths highlight the danger of passing the law even if the law itself hasn't directly caused any deaths yet. It's like passing a law against yelling "Shark!" at the beach when there's a great white in the area.
"Oh but Mary was pulled under before anyone had noticed the shark in the first place. The law didn't contribute to her death at all." Technically true but... what the fuck are we doing guys?
Objectivity is difficult when your empanada hookup's husband died in this heat.
I didn't know the family well, let alone the husband, but their family is in mourning because of laws like these.
There is blood on Abbot's (and his ilk's) hands and that family will likely never see justice served. So do tell me how laws, even federal laws, protect us if they are not actively enforced?
The article mentions 11 people, only 4 of which died on the job. The rest were either outside, at home, or were imates in prison. Notice the wording used in the headline too, "11 Texans die after", not "11 Texans die FROM".
Since then, 11 people between the ages of 60 and 80 have died of heat-related illness in Webb County, the Associated Press reported. Most did not have air-conditioning in their homes. A teen and stepfather died while hiking in extreme heat at Big Bend National Park, per a National Park Service release. According to the Texas Tribune, at least nine inmates, including two men in their 30s, died in Texas prisons that lack air conditioning. And at least four workers have died after collapsing while laboring in triple-digit heat: a post office worker in Dallas, a utility lineman in East Texas, and construction workers in Houston and San Antonio.
It's just pure disingenuous behavior. There's plenty of legitimate reasons to hate Abbot, this comes off as manipulation.
And people wonder why there's so much distrust in media.
I agree that the headline does not fit the article, but I also think people will die if they are not allowed water breaks. And Abbott doesn't give two shits.
Okay, but 9 inmates dying because they don't have air conditioning is still on the state to fix. And the four workers shouldn't have to die because of their jobs.
It's not like Texas is at the forefront of worker's rights. They could have easily prevented those deaths, but they choose not to.
It's just 9 human beings and 4 other human beings dying in the heat, what's to worry about?
They died from the laws that are still in effect until Abbot's bill takes over in September. Why see you blaming that bill when it has nothing to do with these deaths?
I didn't blame the bill, I only pointed out how callous you were being by saying that these deaths are nothing to worry about. This bill is not the cause of those deaths, however the bill (in my opinion) won't do anything other than cause more suffering. When someone makes a complaint instead of it going to a local authority who would have the resources and bodies to investigate the company, that conversation will become "oh sorry nothing we can do, talk to OSHA and then wait for 3 months for a response where they tell you they may look into it!" What benefit comes out of restricting local jurisdiction's ability to pass laws requiring extra water breaks? What gets my goat is that the only benefit I could reasonably see is increased corporate profits at the cost of human well-being.
It's not disingenuous when his actions to ban water breaks are done at a time of record heat. It is virtue signalling. Too bad they only have virtues which are not based upon well founded morals or ethics. That is worth lambasting even if it doesn't have a 100% causal link.
The law takes effect September 1st, so how did it lead to any of the deaths in the article when it isn't even in effect?
Like I said - it is virtue signalling. Just because there may not be a causal relationship does not mean that their is no relationship. Nor does it excuse bad virtues.
"only 4"
Each one of those four is a human being. With a family, a life, a personality, hopes and dreams. And that humanity was taken away from four human beings and their families, why? For some fucking political points to underscore how "anti-worker" the conservative party is (with the racist dog whistle rhetoric being that they are also anti-immigration).
Whether it's one person, four people, twenty people, or someone who "just" suffered heat stroke, it doesn't change how utterly cruel this is. It doesn't change the fact that it's a violation of human rights, whether there's federal laws on the same subject or not. It doesn't change that conservatives are adding insult to injury with these fatal policies.
And yes, maybe there's state and federal laws that will override the lack of municipal laws. But what happens in real life is that some foreman somewhere denies workers water. The workers can't say or do anything maybe because they're not here legally. Maybe because they don't want to lose their jobs. Or maybe they just don't know their rights. Then, they die or are injured from the heat. Only then can they or their families pursue damages in court, which could be expensive and will probably take years.
That's the problem. The only recourse for workers or their families will come after the death/injury.
Those 4 people would have died anyway because the law isn't even in effect until September 1st. Blaming the law that isn't even in effect is disingenuous.
The deaths happening show that the heat is lethal. The ban on water breaks is only going to kill MORE people.
How are they going to kill more people? Workers already have a federally mandated right to have access to water. You are spreading misinformation.
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Because they shouldn't be messing with water breaks at all.
They aren't, the law is about consistency of regulations for regional companies. Have you worked for a sub contractor that has to have different policies in every city they work in?
We're living in a time where the people want to get their news in 15 second chunks, and think they understand a complex situation instantly.
We're also living in a time where social media leans heavily left.
These combined encourage young left wing people to be drawn to and vocalize their perceived expertise, when in reality they have absolutely no clue of the situation beyond what their 15 second attention span can gather.