House Bill 2127 pre-empts municipalities from enacting legislation in eight areas—with predictable results.
I am vehemently opposed to this law. It is useless, dangerous bullshit, done only for political signalling.
However, this artcle is bullshit too, having absolutely nothing to do with the law, except for the headline.
Local ordinances mandating water breaks for workers outdoors, passed in Austin in 2010 and in Dallas in 2015, have contributed to a significant decrease in annual heat-related illnesses and heat deaths. Since 2011, annual workplace heat-related illness numbers have dropped by 78 percent, while workplace heat-related deaths have cut in half. San Antonio considered a similar ordinance before the Death Star zapped its chances.
In addition to overturning existing local ordinances, House Bill 2127 bans cities and counties from passing new ones at the risk of legal action. These include any bills concerning agriculture, finance, insurance, labor, natural resources, property, business and commerce, and occupations.
[…] come September 1, those water breaks in Dallas and Austin will no longer be mandatory. Some workers fear that bosses seeking to increase production will eliminate existing breaks.
Trying to understand how this has nothing to do with it?
How can people be dying now to something that comes into effect on September 1st?
I didn’t say the headline was the best, I said the article discussed the topic at hand and provided examples with how.
The fact that people are ALREADY dying and this would LIMIT their MANDATED breaks, it goes to show this is very much a step in the wrong direction.
That’s not even acknowledging the fact that all estimates indicate summers will only get more severe.
I didn’t say the headline was the best
Biggest understatement.
The headline implies that people died as a direct result of this legislation, when the law have even gone into effect and the deaths had absolutely nothing to do with the law.
Hello is this Wendy’s?🐥
OK, they described the content and background of the law. But the article is about 11 deaths that are utterly unrelated to that law. And the headline is a salacious attempt to link the two.
Do you actually disagree with my point, or is this just useless pedantry?
That was faster than I expected. Especially since the law isn’t even in effect yet. Sept 1 according to Texas Tribune.
the article doesnt mention the nature of any of the deaths and dont actually say its because they were denied water breaks. it just says these deaths happened after the law was signed into place. a few of the deaths were actually not work related at all
though it does speculate that it must be because of the heat
While I’m appalled this bill exists as a fellow southerner sweating in this heat, the o my deaths mentions that could have possibly happened due to denial were the lineman and the post delivery person. But it’s isn’t explicitly stated.
The Governor?
You mean Greg Abbott the Little Piss Baby?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.
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.
He doesn’t care if people die. He doesn’t care. At all.
This is what blows me away. If I did anything that could be linked to any kind of serious harm to someone, I would be fucking devastated.
It’s almost like these people are aliens when you look at their ability to just not give a single fuck about anyone
He’s a sociopath. He has no concept of empathy. All he cares about is his own power. Which is true of a lot of politicians, sadly. And yes, it is a very alien way of looking at the world, but a disturbing number of people are sociopaths.
I’m of the opinion that one of the major perquisites for those seeking a leadership position is the presence of some narcissistic/egocentric/sociopathic traits. It varies in degree from person to person, but the magnitude of their ambition and their degree of success at keeping their positions all depend on how many of these traits they possess. Not all of these traits are necessarily bad to have in a leader, but they tend to come in mixed bags.
When individual humans reach a certain level of power and wealth they tend to self isolate. This is a natural response, they need to start to see themselves as different and set apart from regular humans, because the things they need to do to keep growing their wealth and power start to become increasingly inhuman.
Here’s a link to an article full of the insane things billionaires have tried to justify, in their own little books, and these are just the things they are happy to share. The complete disconnect from their reality and ours becomes terribly pain to see once you read their thoughts.
It is a weird realization to understand that some people don’t understand empathy for their fellow man. In many cases not simply don’t have empathy, but don’t understand it, like it is actually a foreign concept for them.
We see this when examining many dictators like Putin, that his entire view of international politics is shaped by this mindset that civilians are disposable pawns to be thrown away at the pleasure of those above them, and keeps making faulty assumptions of how other people will act based on this. The important takeaway I think is that when people immerse themselves deep enough in such cruel thinking, the cruelty eventually becomes second nature.
Oh I bet he understands empathy. He just doesn’t see workers as “fellow men”.
More like grit on the bottom of his boot.
Wait, and some report say US has ufo material since the 60s…. It all make sense now /s
I like that the Texas Observer is willing to at least imply what those of us on the left have been shouting for decades: Republican policies often kill people.
They know this in advance and still pass those laws, which makes them de facto murderers.
The cruelty is the point. As long as the “right” people get hurt, they’re happy about it.
Absolutely. Hurting the “the others” being inherently virtuous is a core tenet of fascism, after all…
And in Texas, it’s very likely to be the “right” people doing outdoor work in the blazing heat.
As a Texan, I’d love to see these anti-human murderers see some justice.
Sadly, I doubt I’ll see the day.
Meanwhile Beijing just banned working outside after 10 days of over 35c degree days. It’s really weird to watch this country unravel.
Remember, the cruelty is the point.
In what way? To have consistent laws for sub contractors across the state? I promise you, on site, when people are thirsty they get their drink of water.
Hear that everyone? This guy promised! Nothing to worry about, then.
Let me guess, you saw a headline, and have absolutely 0 knowledge of the industry, but you’re acting as if you’ve worked construction in 100 degree weather?
Once you talk to people who have done that, or better yet, done it yourself, you’d understand that we don’t care about local policies ‘mandating’ water breaks. We drink water perpetually throughout the day.
Edit: Lol downvotes from people who have never worked construction in 100 degree weather telling someone who has how we drink water. I was hoping this wouldn’t just be another r/politics sub, but it appears I was wrong.
Once you talk to people who have done that, or better yet, done it yourself, you’d understand that we don’t care about local policies ‘mandating’ water breaks. We drink water perpetually throughout the day.
Then what is your grievance with requiring it?
Why do we need government requiring me to drink water?
Waste of government time, tax payer dollars, administration costs all so some politician can pat themselves on their back.
How would you like it if I walked into your office and dictated your time?
Water is woke now?
What a HORRIFICALLY misleading headline.
A) Water breaks aren’t banned, just no longer mandated under some local ordinances. Still mandated by federal law, in theory.
B) The law hasn’t even gone into effect yet.
C) The deaths referred to are not from lack of water. It even specifically suggests lack of air conditioning.
party of pro life
In the dictionary’s definition of evil there is a picture. Oh, hey Governor!
I think Texas Ghoul and the Florida Reaper are having a “most evil” competition to see who can get the best penthouse in Hell. They should have read their contracts better; the floors go down in hell, not up.
It’s a feature, not a bug.
Feature of what? A law that hasn’t gone into effect yet?
As I Lib, I feel so very owned.
owning the libs by unconditional murder
i mean, we all knew this was going to happen, right? i understand people are desperate for work but nothing is worth your health.
Unfortunately the “dignity of work” is so engrained in American culture, it’s not just the money (and ability to feed/house yourself) on the line, but your sense of selfworth.
It’s bullshit, don’t get me wrong, but it runs deep and messes a lot of people up (speaking from experience).
