this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2023
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Work Reform

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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.”

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[–] hawkwind@lemmy.management 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (10 children)

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!

[–] Juujian@lemmy.world 38 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

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.

[–] hawkwind@lemmy.management 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Kapitel42@feddit.de 4 points 1 year ago

Nearöy every safety bill is written im blood. The blood of the workers , because corperations dont care about there workers, they care about a line ging up.

Without regulation workers would still be getting locked in factories, burning to death in care of fire.

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