2y ago

“We are dying”: Houston workers protest new state law removing water break requirements

www.texastribune.org

House Bill 2127, which takes effect on Sept. 1, will do away with local rules that require water breaks for construction workers. The cities of Austin and Dallas, for example, require 10-minute breaks every four hours. San Antonio officials had been considering a similar ordinance.

“We are human beings who need respect,” Martínez said. “We really need to be allowed to work without problems, without any barriers … Believe me, we are dying inside those buildings when they take away our water and our [break] time.”

102 comments

The law is a ten minute break every four hours?? That’s fucking bullshit already!
Where I live it 15 minutes after 2.5 hours if you’re only working 5 hours or less. 2 hours if you’re you’re there all day, but you get your 30-minute lunch after 4 hours, then a fifteen minute break every two hours worked after that.
- I worked at a concrete yard in Ontario, Canada for a few years. Breaks due to heat were given based on temps. At one point it was 15 minute breaks with Gatorade provided - every hour.
  Americans desperately need to reestablish the proper hierarchy of power.
  You have removed child labor laws across a number of states, human rights are basically done, labor has returned to 19th century standards.
  So much blood was lost for nothing.
  
  I see the same rhetoric moving in to Canada. It’s disheartening to see our closest friends and allies suffer while the disease causing it tries to creep it’s way in here.
  
  vaguely gestures at communist revolution
  Americans: But my freedumbs!

If an employer doesn't allow you a water break in this heat then it's time to leave them without employees.
- This should be an absolute no brainer of an issue to unionize over.

so much "prolife" sentiment coming out of Texas! /s

Oh man... what sort of people come up with these laws? It's already bad enough to only have 10 minutes every 4 hours, now they want to take that away too? Wtf is happening.
- A governor who made his millions off of suing a property owner when a tree fell and broke his back.
  Never worked a hard day in his life, let alone worked outside.
  Someone should wheel him outside on one of these 100+ degree days and tell him he can’t drink until his 8 hours are over.
  
  And now medical malpractice awards are capped.. This coming from the state that had "Dr. Death".
  
  Have him lay some bricks, water or no, and he can't stop til he's done so for 8 hours.
- what sort of people come up with these laws?
  People who don't work... and certainly never outside.

And here I am contemplating what kind of world we live in where people working a regular job can't just get up and go drink as much as they need whenever they need... I mean ok sure don't drop the heavy steel beam you carry with a coworker until you have it in place, but after you finished a task it shouldn't take more than a "I'm going to take a drink" and off you go. Also sure be prepared to face consequences if you don't get anything done.. But it surely can't be more detrimental to your work output to drink for a minute every so often than not drinking at all and getting fatigue etc.
- In most parts of the USA most children are taught to ask for things such as water and bathroom breaks at school, up til senior year of highschool. When the kids do not listen they are reprimanded/punished. This leads to brainwashing. Some young adults never do break out of the habit of asking. This leads to situations of dehydration and death.
  It's straight up bizarre having a 25 year old man walk up to me(30F) and ask to use the restroom or get a drink of water. Granted I was also brainwashed til about 22. It dawned on me one day it was straight up dumb to ask for water or to use the restroom.
  
  Yeah, in modern American schools, the students are the product and billionaires are the customers.
  
  This reminds me of the Chain gang in the Paul Newman movie Cool Hand Luke. They are working on roads in hot Florida weather and have to ask the boss for water or to take their shirt off or basically to do any autonomous function.
  
  I don’t see how school is the same scenario at all. In school, you have a natural break every 45 minutes or so, and can choose to do your business then, rather than disrupt class for everyone. Also, kids do need to learn some control, to pick appropriate times when you can. Most importantly, too many kids abuse the freedom to disrupt or skip class: they have no reason to care about a reprimand whereas an adult probably has their income on the line.
  Of course, after saying that, I do have to add that my ex is a teacher who does not want kids to ask. She controls the potential for abuse with a token (beanie baby) allowing only two to go at once, and she has the privilege of a private school with higher standards for their kids

If the politicians can do those jobs under those conditions for a week, have at it
The actual benefit would be some state reps would die during the exercise, and well, that's enough
- Please make Abbot participate.

Wtf is this shit... If you're overheated and dehydrated, stop, drink water.
It's pretty simple
- Sure, to a reasonable human, it's simple. But take into consideration terrible bosses and ceos that only care about profits and you get businesses that threaten you if you sit for 5 minutes.
  
  It's why they want people to stay poor as well, because then you can't leave the job or strike without pay, as you can't afford it, so you have to keep working and hope change comes through laws (which if it ever does, it takes years)

"we are dying"
Oh please, stop being dramatic
/s
- A little death never hurt anyone.
  /s

So how fucked up we want to make everything for the backbone-industry everyone is needing:
US: Yes
Seriously, I can't even understand how people allow this to happen in your own country. It would be political suicide to try this in any place of Germany.
- Individual votes don't count nearly as much as corporate cash.
  This is the epitome of late stage capitalism in the US.
  
  Your first sentence is absolutely accurate, but I think this specific case is more about sticking it to the libs in the cities that passed these laws, with the side benefit that most of these workers are minorities that the state reps don't like.

I get where they're coming from with this, but if I'm out doing physical labor in the hot sun I need water like ever 20 minutes. Four hours is an eternity.
- I get where they’re coming from with this
  I really don't. What is the point of this law?
- It's the break part, not the water part. I doubt they're not allowed to carry water bottles, but they need a chance to refill.

So like what does it take for people to revolt? are they just going to stand idly by while their fellows actually die, waiting for their own turn to stroke out from overworking and dehydration?
- As long as it owns the libs, a lot of Americans, and in particular Texans, will very happily do that.
  
  chopping your dick off to own the libs

Greg Abbott is a little piss baby.
- It feels pretty shitty to be a disabled person scrolling by and seeing comments like this. I don't think that Abbott being a shitty person makes your statement any less hurtful to non-shitty disabled people

Texas is learning Qatari World Cup stadium construction methods

And yet all the votes except for ONE came from the Republican party.....
- I don't know if the person you're replying to was mistaken, or whether votes are different from sponsors, but I'm seeing two Democrats here.
  But that's a minor clarification that doesn't reduce the point at all - that's a heck of a lot of Republicans

What is the LeopardAteMyFace equivalent for Lemmy? Because this belongs there.
Guaranteed that the same people complaining about this water break issue now are also people who in the last election either couldn't be bothered to go vote, or voted for that clown Abbott. You vote for fascists, you get fascist policies.
- LeomardsAteMyFace

It’s crazy to me that anyone could sit on their ass in AC all day and even consider speaking to take water breaks away from construction workers. I went in figuring they got 10 minutes per hour and it’s only 10 minutes per four hours?! Fuck that noise, they need more time to rest and hydrate. What the fuck is wrong with people.

Ribbit

Bro, americans are slaves. I thought they abolished slavery.
- Only for everything other than punishment, and being poor is a crime in America.
  
  If you're too poor you're literally sent to a gulag and forced into slave work.
- They also practice slavery in their gulags.
  
  They got chain gangs in Florida, in this prison where they eat meat scraps for alligators; the packaging says 'not suitable for human consumption'.

Who let these people out of the factory?!

On the upside, fewer Texans. /s

In hot weather OHSA requires water breaks, these laws are redundant.
- Seems like there’s enough fear to cause protests at least
- When was the last time you had OSHA come crashing down on you the last time you scooted a manual fork around like a fucken razor scooter? Never? Same.
  So how often do you think they will come to these people's aid when they are having a heatstroke? Thats right. Never.
- OSHA recommends water breaks, it does not require them.

This will sound like I am not supporting workers, but hear me out. The intention of this law has nothing to do with taking away breaks. There’s this picture being painted of “state and evil construction companies” vs “workers and municipalities.” There’s actually two different fights here: workers vs evil construction companies and, the state vs municipalities. Focusing on the first one is important outside of how the state and city are bickering.
If you know your construction company will take away your 10 min / 4 hr water break because the city can no longer enforce that, that’s NOT the state’s fault because they’re taking a common sense approach to consolidating laws and eliminating bureaucracy. That is an evil fucking construction company.
You want to blame a lawmaker because they assumed no company would be evil enough to do that, fine, but think about that, and the entire scope of this bill, when deciding who to protest against.
EDIT: Sorry to come off looking like a republican shill. That was honestly not my intention. I'll try harder next time. ESH except the workers trying to stay hydrated!
- We should remove all those laws barring children working in mines, because common sense is that mining companies would not employ children... You are conflating two issues here. What the world ought to do, and what is really happening. Folks in Texas are struggling in the sun, and we ought to give them any tool we can do they can fight back.
  
  Don't be like that. I wasn't talking about the world, or children in mines. Just this bill and the protests against its passing.
- Every large company will squeeze every second of productivity out of a worker unless it’s forced not to.
  The 8 hour work day was fought for by workers, the 5 day work week was fought for by workers, child labor laws were fought for by workers. These things required protests and often time violence to get, because companies were literally killing people through work until these things became labor law.
  Removing labor protection does nothing but remove safety for workers and increase profits for corporations.
  The free market doesn’t work and has never worked. Anyone who says otherwise is willfully ignorant of history and basic logical reasoning.
  
  I get that, and I support everything you're saying. It feels like the workers are getting played by the companies though. Workers should be lobbying for rights to the state, federal and municipal levels, but this feels like a "red herring" of a bill to get behind.
- Don't blame our government, it's the evil company that would take away breaks you should be mad at!
  What kind of asinine logic is this? When has any profit driven corporation ever done "the right thing" without government stipulations? Maybe you should read up on Dupont, Shelll, Exxon, Enron, Rocketdyne, and about a million other companies that did the exact opposite of that as long as they possibly could and even then some.
  
  I'm not sure who you are quoting, or trying to reason with, but I agree with your sentiment. A profit driven company will do everything it can to profit. Are you trying to say we should "only" be mad at the government and not the company, in this scenario?
- I appreciate you trying to explain a perspective, even if it's possibly "wrong." We do need to spend time trying to understand why rather than default assuming it's because they're awful human beings.
  I don't think the downvotes are deserved as I don't think you're shilling for corpo overlords or trolling.

Shitty law, but it's not even in effect yet.
- Nah, let's wait until the law passes and people die first, that's a great idea! /s
- People are already dying in the heat. Remove water breaks and it gets worse. Are you fucking 12?
- Yeah, because as we know, no general contractor would leap at the opportunity to start early lol
- In Houston today, it’s going to feel like 43°C (110°F). When I go outside in that heat even for a second or two, I‘m already too hot, need a water break, and wonder how anyone can survive working in that.
  I don’t know how anyone with a conscience could feel that heat and think removing water breaks for the workers is fine.
  Maybe I’m just a stupid communist though and should try losing my conscience or something…
  
  If you use celsius as a default, I doubt you live in Houston.

102 comments