Texas Loves You, This I Know, For Greg Abbott Told Me So

Triple-digit heat? Pfft...construction workers and other Brown People will get a water break when we say they can have one!

Muslims are bad because they are, that’s all. Why would you need a reason? It’s one thing to let your child go blind because you read on Facebook that the measles vaccine would make him autistic, it’s another to ship him off to a work camp because he inherited his grandmother’s genes instead of Grandpa’s. Our entire race is trying to lobotomize itself. It’s as moronic and repulsive as someone cutting off their own legs.”

• Sylvain Neuvel, Only Human

Texas Republicans have always been proud that they’ve turned the Lone Star State into a “business-friendly” Paradise. While that might mean different things to different people, it’s not about creating an environment that’s friendly to the needs of workers. This is especially true if you’re one of the unfortunate souls who toils outside in triple-digit temperatures.

It’s not a stretch to state that the human body wasn’t designed to work outside in the brutal Texas heat and humidity. Heat exhaustion and heat stroke can be genuine risks for those who work as roofers, road builders, construction workers, and in other fields requiring them to be out of doors.

When I lived in Houston, I and most other bipeds spent our days migrating from one air-conditioned environment to another. When the temperatures were in the triple digits and the humidity in the 60-70% range, there was no way to be comfortable outdoors. We all contributed to destroying the ozone layer, but the alternative was too awful to contemplate.

So you’d think that the state government would err on the side of protecting workers when it comes to allowing extra water and cooling breaks to ensure that safety is the primary concern.

Yeah, you might think that, but you’d be forgetting that in Greg Abbott’s Texas, money talks. And so being “business-friendly” at the risk of the lives of a few workers is just a cost of doing business.

Besides, most of those who work outdoors are Brown People. By the unspoken Texas rule in force for generations, they’re less worthy of protection than good, God-fearing White Conservative Christian heterosexuals.

Last year, 279 people died from heat-related illnesses in Texas — the most heat-related deaths the state has had since 1999.

In hope of beating that record, Governor Greg Abbott signed a bill this week that, among other things, will bar local municipalities from mandating water breaks for construction workers. Why? Because it really hurts businesses to have to provide 10 minute breaks every four-and-a-half hours so that construction workers can drink some water so that they don't die in triple digit heat.

HB 2127, introduced by state Rep. Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, is aimed at overturning progressive policies enacted by cities and barring them from reenacting them ever again. Supporters of the law, which include lobbying groups like the Federation of Independent Business (and probably zero construction workers), claim it is just too confusing for businesses to have to abide by a "patchwork" of local ordinances and regulations. The new law will make it so no local ordinances can provide greater protections for workers than the state requires.

“We did across-the-board regulatory preemption so that local governments — the city of Austin, for example — are not going to be able to micromanage businesses in the state of Texas, especially driving up the costs for local businesses,” Abbott said, according to the Texas Tribune. “We are going to have one regulatory regime across the entire state on massive subject areas that will make the cost of business even lower, the ease of business even better.”

And dying on the job even more likely!

Yeah, because you certainly wouldn’t want cities erring on the side or worker safety, would you? Because that might cost a business profits they could earn by squeezing more productivity out of a worker…just before he drops dead from heat stroke.

Hey, you can always hire another (Brown) worker.

The law won't go into effect until September 1, but it's still worth mentioning that temperatures in Texas will be in the triple digits for the next seven days. It will also, according to opponents of the law "make it more difficult for cities and counties to protect tenants facing eviction or to combat predatory lending, excessive noise and invasive species."

Geoffrey Tahuahua, president of Associated Builders and Contractors of Texas, a supporter of the bill, tried to claim that OSHA already protects worker safety enough in this regard and that, free of these regulations, businesses will be more inclined to protect workers simply out of the goodness of their hearts.

“They try to make one size fits all, and that is not how it should work,” he said. “These ordinances just add confusion and encourage people to do the minimum instead of doing the right thing.”

There is very little evidence that, without regulations, businesses will just do the right thing on their own.

Anecdotal evidence shows that businesses don’t do the right thing when left to their own initiative. And when heat indices climb north of 100, a frequent occurrence in Texas, that can be exceedingly hazardous.

Texas Republicans (you remember The Party of Small Government, right?) have decided they are and will remain the ultimate arbiter on virtually every law, rule, and regulation in the Lone Star State. Nothing will happen if they aren’t the ones pulling the strings. Yes, Texas Republicans in the state legislature want to be the Be All and End All when it comes to political power in Texas. All others need not apply.

City governments might as well get used to being show ponies.

The Texas Tribune also reports that David Michaels, the former head of OSHA vehemently disagrees with Tahuahua.

“Under OSHA law, it is employers who are responsible to make sure workers are safe,” said Michaels, now a professor at the George Washington University School of Public Health. “And we have compelling evidence that they are doing a very poor job because many workers are injured on the job, especially in Texas.”

Michaels pointed out that OSHA does not have a national standard for heat-related illnesses and issues citations only for over-exposure to heat after an injury or death, but not before that occurs.

“The better solution would be to have a national standard, but since we do not, local ordinances are very important for saving lives,” he said. “Prohibiting these local laws will result in workers being severely hurt or killed.”

The "we're not going to explicitly bar you from doing it, but you could get sued afterwards if it ends badly" model that replaces most reasonable business regulations in the United States has not really worked out to the benefit of workers and consumers. Especially since those who do sue the businesses who "should have just done the right thing out of the goodness of their hearts" are frequently derided as burdening us all with "frivolous lawsuits." Michaels is correct. It would just be easier if we had a general, nationwide rule that you can't have people working in the heat for hours on end without giving them regular water breaks, but that would never happen.

Wow, what a novel and human concept- treating people like human beings and not chattel or units of production. Then again, when you have a virtually endless supply of indigent Brown People looking to make money however they can, you have a population that’s easy to exploit. And work to death if that’s what you need.

The idea that cities and towns won’t be allowed to pass laws intended to provide additional protections for workers probably will mean that people will die from heat stroke or heat exhaustion. Of course, losing a few dozen here and there probably won’t feel like a crisis if you don't consider Brown People to be human. Wait until a few White Conservative Christian heterosexuals drop like flies, though.

Yeah, THEN you can bet the Texas legislature will leap into action. Because in Texas, as in every red state, White Conservative Christian heterosexuals look out for their own.