As Texas sweltered last month under a weekslong, record-breaking heat wave, the state passed a law that will eliminate mandatory water breaks for construction workers in cities where such ordinances had been in place to protect people from extreme heat. Now, backlash is brewing.
House Bill 2127 passed the state Legislature and Gov. Greg Abbott promptly signed it into law on June 14. The bill, which goes into effect in September, strips construction workers in Austin and Dallas of the right to water breaks every four hours and time to rest in the shade while on the job.
The new law comes as Texas endured three straight weeks of high humidity and triple-digit temperatures in June. Such intense and long-lasting heat waves are expected to become more common in a warming world, climate scientists have said.
How could anyone reasonably defend this? The cruelty is clearly the point… Regulations like this are written in blood.
I guess we went so long with things working marginally well (in general), that everyone is convinced that the regulations that got us there are unnecessary. Things are only going to get worse until we (maybe) learn these lessons the hard way again.
From the bill
Texas cities have passed burdensome local ordinances, creating a patchwork regulations across the state. These policies are better left to the employer, and if necessary, the state and federal government. Uniformity and consistent policy gives employers and employees greater clarity and flexibility.
It’s a move aiming to centralize control of the state.
the purpose of this Act is to provide regulatory consistency across this state and return the historic exclusive regulatory powers to the state where those powers belong.
Yeah, Greg Abbott is a massive piece of shit. I’m hoping OSHA will have some say in this matter considering how they’ve been pushing Heat Prevention the last couple years. I’m not sure if they have power to enforce breaks from the heat through fines or not, but no employer wants to get hit by them.
See: Water, Shade, Rest
I imagine the only way OSHA would have the power to do that, is if Congress passes a federal law to supercede the Texas law. I could be wrong though, not exactly an expert on OSHA’s purview.
The Occupational Safety and Health Act, which established and gave authority to OSHA, is federal law that supersedes Texas law so long as it is in force.
The law allows states to set up their own local jurisdictions if they so chose. Texas has not so chosen, so federal OSHA has authority there.
