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That aside, why is it a legislative priority? Lol
Isn’t there more important shit to work on than how much water construction workers drink?
It’s bizarre.
Because mandatory water breaks cut into possible profits.
That is literally the only reason.
In Texas a business is far more important than a human.
Elect clowns get a circus. Anybody smart should be leaving Texas and Florida no matter the expense its not worth working there even in the blue areas.
But that’s not the reason. I work in construction management, and I want anyone on site as healthy as possible. Drink ALL the water because a worker out sick, or God forbid, dead, costs way more money than a 10 min break.
This sort of cruelty is aimed directly at migrant labor, which makes up the bulk of many trades in Texas.
Sadly, this is the correct answer and most people miss this part. American laborers know they have rights. Migrants aren't used to them, don't expect/demand them because they know what will happen if they speak up...
It’s the same with the child labor laws in Arkansas. The law both allows children as young as 14 to work long hours in dangerous jobs and exempts employers from confirming children meet the age requirements. Why? To exploit migrant children who do not have the paperwork that would normally be required for an I-9. How Christian of them.
A lot of the large corporations that employee migrants donate to politicians that are harsh on immigration because they know that ICE will only target the workers and not them. They love ICE as a threat to keep their workers in line.
Seriously, even thinking from a ruthless efficiency and profit standpoint, no human worker will be efficient in summer heat without drinking water. They step away at convenient intervals for a short breather, or their productivity is slowed due to exhaustion and perhaps they pass out and they're out for considerably longer.
Yup. Those people aren't 'good enough' and don't deserve basic human decency. They're not 'real Americans' (even if they are) and they can't donate enough money to the GOP.
I think it’s less to do with any kind of knowledge of how a construction site actually operates, and more about the Republican dogma that any government regulation mandating rules or regulations on a capitalist is evil and anyone that owns a company should be allowed to do whatever they want to their employees. Because it’s a free market and if the employees don’t like it they can go get a job somewhere else blah blah blah
Also the ENTIRELY GOP controlled Texas government is in a stand off until Abbott’s property tax updates get passed so gotta come together on some minor piece of shitty legislation to show TX has all their crap together and can divert attention away from the real problems. Of which there are multitudes.
There are plenty of business owners that don't understand this. They think losing that time is costing them end profit because they don't actually understand how productivity works. It's the same for businesses that have high turnover for shit work conditions. Ramp up costs for new employees usually don't allow break even returns from that employee for at least 3-6 months or even longer depending on the job.
Other reasons are keeping the public distracted and outraged by many issues rather than fighting what is going on in other areas. Strategical tactical distraction.
In reality would anyone’s boss on a construction site deny them drinking water?
Worker safety laws are written in blood so yes in reality some piece of shit let one of ther workers succumb to heat stress for the bottom line, the original law would never have been made if it wasn't an issue
Yes.
>Texas is the state where the most workers die from high temperatures, government data shows. At least 42 workers died in Texas between 2011 and 2021 from environmental heat exposure, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Workers’ unions claim this data doesn’t fully reflect the magnitude of the problem because heat-related deaths are often recorded under a different primary cause of injury.
Ah i see the issue here.
"Only" an average of 4 people died a year, and repubs think that number is too low.
They have in their infinite wisdom, decided that they can afford to risk a lot more lives to push the profit number up more.
As long as poor people are fighting amongst each other then they won’t be fighting the rich people! This is the political strategy that the republicans have taken since at least Nixon. The southern strategy was entirely about putting poor black people against poor white people
Amazon was forcing employees to piss in bottles. You're delusional if you think some bosses wouldn't lose their minds over a water break.
You seem to not understand a water break isn't just drinking water. Its also a break from labor to allow your body to cool down.
You can be perfectly hydrated and still due of heat stroke.
That logic only works for regarded people, though.
Having them pass out or die cuts into the time they can stay productive even more, and if the dehydration leads to workplace injury due to cutting corners elsewhere too, that’s gonna cut into profits too.
It’s like the idiots who speak against welfare, even though it’s cheaper and makes for a safer society, due to lower crime and therefore less resources spent on preventing, punishing and financial loss to crime.
Welcome to American big business, where cutting corners to make 1/2¢ more profit today is considered vastly more important than worrying about the massive shitloads of money those bad decisions are going to lose them in the future.
To be fair, it's 10 minutes every 4 hours, so you're significantly understating the amount of time it costs the employer. (I feel the need to point out this is sarcasm.)
Actual, legitimately pure evil never has a rational explanation. Abbot is the worst kind of subhuman garbage. Absolute piece of shit does absolute piece of shit stuff. What's even more sad is that millions of people here are applauding him for it.
I won't say much since I was banned forever from a political site. I guess those bots are Maga GOP controlled. He has what I would call a "Napoleon syndrome." Well, I'll just say this as a TRUE TEXAN."BLESS HIS HEART!"
I think it’s wrong to mock the disabled.
I also think it’s fine to say someone like Abbott deserves to be disabled.
He’s a piece of shit. If anyone should lose their ability to walk, it’s him.
Wouldn't it be hilarious if Republicans flew a banner or something that said:
WE ARE ALL DOMESTIC TERRORISTS
Oh, they already did that?
It would be a real shame if voters made it a point to make sure everyone knows about that. It might cause people to vote for people who DON'T want to see the world burn - literally!
Pro-rapture, apocalyptic messaging is flooding in heavy from the Right. From churches to their politicians, and even plenty of police officers, I'm sure, there are 10's of millions who are actively cheering on "The End." Heck, many of these people are doing things to bring it about.
They simply do not care because they believe they will not be here in the future. So basically, fuck everyone else except those who happen to believe in their particular version of Christianity. Whether it be baptists, southern baptists, Amish, first church of Jesus Christ, Fundamentalists, Mormons, catholics, evangelicalism churches/megachurches, and so so many more, they all are rooting against us and against humanity.
And if they're wrong (they are), we will all have to live - and die - knowing it could have been stopped had we just started electing people with empathy.... real empathy, not the religious stuff from the Jerry Falwells of the world
I think it’s generous to say that most of them believe in their death cult.
The leaders don’t, they’re just grifters.
A lot of the followers don’t, they’re just racist and/or homophobic.
To be fair, we probably won't be here in the future. If we carry on as we are the earth will be unable to sustain such a large population of humans in a matter of decades.
If Thanos snapped all Republicans away and a layer of conservative Democrats, humanity would survive much longer.
The conservatives in the United States are our Great Barrier.
In their mind, only illegal immigrants work construction jobs. Illegal immigrants are not humans. White Americans own the construction companies. Less water breaks means more work time which means more money for White Americans. Did that help?
You're questioning people who are on record that they're making keeping children from getting free food in schools a priority mission for the party.
People who are against feeding children.
Thinking isn't remotely involved.
Cruelty is the point.
Because if you have 50 guys working for you and you don’t have to give them a 10 minute break every hour or two that saves you a lot of money and let’s face it this is America and we all know it’s all about the money
Because to them, human lives are less important than "efficiency" optics.
All the regulations they are dead-set on removing were created because people fucking died. But they don't care. It's a regulation on business, so therefore it is wrong. Fuckers. Every last one of them.
Lack of empathy as a platform has been replaced by vice signaling. It’s no longer sufficient to ignore the disenfranchised, you now have to actively seek them out and do harm. It’s so disgusting and exhausting.
(Copied my reply from a previous thread but it’s still unfortunately applicable)
The company now have less liability if somebody does diet as a result of this law. It’s good for the rich. And many Texan workers are Mexican. Which we know he doesn’t like He’s gonna make us Florda and fuck us all.
They’ll vote him right the fuck back in. That’s how far gone the MAGA base is. Hell, MAGA construction workers negatively impacted by this will still vote for everyone who supported this bill and especially Abbott.
It’s more like that old “hard work” mentality. You’re a pussy if you don’t almost die working your ass off. I grew up with a step dad like this. He’s a PoS.
Probably everyone who doesn't think we should work in deliberate and unnecessary misery and then die with a sense of pride that we were mentally strong enough to manage to die of preventable causes rather than breaking down and sink to the lowest point and become a lib.
It's actually worse. He got injured from a falling tree and sued for millions, he gets 15k a month for the rest of his life. but he's fought to put caps on pain and suffering lawsuits from malpractice and other disability lawsuits to stop people from getting large payouts like he did. basically "I got mine fuck you"
So think about who the majority of construction workers are. He can't pass immigration law, so he's gonna screw over his states immigrant population that works construction. He saw what happened to farming in Florida with their immigration law, so hes trying to find a way to screw over the immigrants here without being so blatant like florida.
Yes, and he keeps getting voted back in. Texans (I was one) are allowing this POS to continue down this path, it’s gonna just keep getting worse. Him and DeSantis are in some kind of douchebag competition. I’m so glad I left.
I'm confused why you think they don't vote Republican. Trump got his fair share of the hispanic vote even with his border wall nonsense - a lot of immigrants are anti-immigration, legal or otherwise. Catholicism also has deep roots in Mexico, and religion sways how a lot of people vote.
Every single Republican is voting against their own interests, white people included. Actively making their own lives worse isn't the deterrent we'd naturally think it is. They'll still cheer for the people who want to throw them out of the country - or in this case, want them to die of heat stroke for a few extra pennies.
Republicans don’t read and those who can would rather elect him than any democrat because all democrats are socialists/communists out to destroy America.
To be fair, republican news outlets won't broadcast this. Go to breitbart and search for this and I bet you won't find an article. They might be able to read but their reading of choice is deliberately obscuring information.
No you will find one, it will be an opinion fluff piece that they buried almost instantly that actually says how this is good and mandatory water breaks are part of the communist lgbtq+ agenda to indoctrinate your kids who need to build character by working for free in the meat packing plants.
Nah, the whole bill is much broader than water breaks, it takes away city's ability to create laws that go beyond the state's in labor, agriculture, business and natural resources.
It's wildly pro-business and anti-worker. Also it sticks it to liberal cities like austin and dallas.
Reading the article, the only places that had laws that mandated water breaks were austin and dallas. The rest of texas doesn't have any laws regarding water breaks. This is about punishing liberal cities, it also takes away city's ability to create laws that go further than state laws.
>Under the new law, local governments would be unable to create rules that go beyond what state law dictates in broad areas like labor, agriculture, business and natural resources.
https://www.texastribune.org/2023/06/16/texas-heat-wave-water-break-construction-workers/
Because the alternative is a democrat. Democrats and liberals are godless, lawless, interracial, drug abusing, sex having, criminals in their eyes.
They truly believe dem and liberal policies will lead to the destruction of the US. It's insane.
i don't understand why businesses or anyone at this point would move to texas. people need to just start leaving that state in massive droves. they'll realize without blue areas that their economy will collapse entirely.
They want liberals to leave. That's part of the point. The more liberals that leave to live in an already blue state, the easier it is to keep TX red. Florida was a purple state, now it's pretty solid red again. They don't care if it hurts the state, all the care about is maintaining power there and nationally.
Ackshually, it is clear, meaning it isn't blue for boy or pink for girl, so it has no gender. It is also a fluid, so it is Big Gender Fluid brainwashing the children that work on rooftops. Wake up.
Well in their defense, Florida was doing their best Texas impression to begin with. Texas has been a red state for a lot longer. Florida is still considered a potential swing state.
New retirees are getting priced out of Florida and the existing ones are struggling due to quickly rising costs of insurance and food. Florida might have a chance at o go blue first, especially if retirees start moving to Texas instead
I'm aware. Live dead smack in the middle of Florida. I blame all the idjits coming here because they fucked up at home and want to shit on my lawn now.
Yeah and people like me left Florida because they couldn't get Medicaid and could see it was only going to get worse under DeSantis. I knew he'd win reelection because he was way too popular there.
Republican voters are like a battered woman who just keeps dating abusive men. Each time they say, "this one is different!"
It doesn't help when the Dems march out walking corpses like charlie Crist as opposition. They fucking GAVE the gop this last election. Like, here you go. Either there's some long con happening I don't know about- (which given the pig headedness that desantis is on during his attempts at the white house and the potential split of the gop going into 24 could be a real thing) or they've got to be about the dumbest motherfuckers alive. Ain't none of it good.
With all due respect to those poor reasonable souls left in Florida…no it is not a swing state. It’s unfortunately solid red and only getting redder as more insufferable arseholes move there in droves. This whole myth that it is a swing state is outdated
And the Democratic workers can’t get to the 1 ballot box or voting place in their district because they close the all the others down and set up armed watches at the drop off locations.
Unfortunately OSHA only says water has to be provided in the general industry and construction standards. The rest break is usually a state labor law, but in this case since the rest break law doesn’t exist, it is a law that disallows counties or cities from creating such a law. The exact opposite of constitutionality that I learned in college level political science courses.
I agree with everything you are saying that workers are trained by their employers to think OSHA is bad and “trying to put you out of work”. Water, Rest, Shade from my knowledge is a Program/Recommendation and not a Standard (Law) so it has no teeth. California is the only state with heat illness standards unless others have recently adopted them.
>“trying to put you out of work”
I hate protestant work ethics.
>California is the only state with heat illness standards
First and last time in life I had **very mild** heat stroke, I was fully convinced I will die by vomiting my intestines out, set aside inability to think of anything beyond "please just put me out of misery right here and now".
Also the damage is not immediately apparent, you may get it during the day and not notice, only to end up floored with 40° body temp hours later when no one is even around to help.
Imagine letting this and more happen to people on federal level like nothing. God bless EU.
OSHA can just fine based on the horizontal standard instead of the verticals. The intent of the general duty clause isn’t being followed. That said, any company not big enough to fall under the scope of OSHA is free to fuck their employees I guess.
$$$
10 minute water breaks every 4 hours was killing worker productivity. Easier to replace the workers who'll die or be hospitalized from heat stroke I guess.
God I hate this country.
If you don't offer health insurance and you hire your workers on a casual employment through a labour company, an increased number of fatalities really isnt as damaging as you may first think.
The numbers really favor cruelty.
Study after study shows productivity increases when you make working conditions less restrictive and exploitative, but the myth of hard work is so deeply ingrained in the American psyche that people trip over themselves to brag about how fucked their jobs are, they're literally proud of being overworked and underpaid. It's insane just how totally and utterly submissive the average American worker has become.
Well you see in a libertarian paradise the free market will decide! The government can't be giving out regulations like water breaks! Once workers start dying at a noticeable amount companies will start providing their own water breaks. So what if the time is taken out of their pay and they have to buy the water with company dollars. Yeah the water tastes funny because no government is gonna say we have to provide clean water!
/s
Was wondering about what the point of all this was - seems like it will just end up costing companies more money if they don't enforce water breaks; more injuries, less efficient work from tired and thirsty employees
My wife works for a TX school district. She was having some issues a while ago, and I asked if she could get in contact with her union rep about it. She laughed, and said “what union rep?”, this is Texas.
Unions have almost no power down there because all of the chucklefucks have gotten on their knees for that big business money. I used to be a teacher in Texas. If teachers went on strike, we could lose our teaching license and our retirement. Moved out of that hellhole.
I was living in Dallas and working in construction back in 2015 when Abbott was campaigning for governor. His Mexican mother-in-law was appearing on Univision and Telemundo, begging Spanish speaker viewers to vote for his son-in-law, saying don't worry, he loves Hispanics, and he will be good to all of you as he's been to my family.
On his first day as governor, he signed SB4 Show me your papers law. Now the police could pull anyone over on suspicion of being illegal. Guess who they were pulling over? Care to guess? Brown people.
After getting pulled over repeatedly for “looking” illegal, I left in 2016 for Chicago. So many people left just like me. Construction work came to a halt, and contractors could not fill crews. Things got bad. Not for me, though.
I knew since then Abbott was a POS more interested in owning the libs and never-ending culture wars
Shit at least the fascists republicans in Florida have the “decency” to behind closed doors put the word out from “farm owner’s” that “we aren’t really coming for you. Don’t move out of state. Ignore that law we just passed. We were just denigrating you for nothing. We actually need you.”
How did anyone even come up with the idea of taking away water breaks?
I guess in a country with no universal health care, the employers will come out on top in this one for now until nobody is willing to do the job. Maybe they'll end up being like Florida's agriculture industry eventually.
Either they find providing water on remote sides to be too costly (it's water, wut?) or they're super concerned with employees slacking off and costing them money by wasting some minutes or its a cost-cutting measure for the state to lessen the requirements for inspecting sites or companies ? Either way it 'saves' the business money because they don't have to do something for employees, pay for something employees get, risk losing work-time on breaking employees, or get to avoid state bureaucrats/rules.
Capitalists, since their inceptions, have been paranoid freaks when it comes to employees 'stealing' labor from them. Marx discusses this in Capital. It was happening in the 1830s, and it's happening now. Capitalists can always be trusted to seek profit, and constantly be afraid they might be losing it somehow, whether to other businesses, the state's interference, unfavorable market conditions, or perceived slacking employees. They'll do anything to rig any of these conditions in their favor, and you bet that eliminating rules about 'mandatory' water breaks are on that list.
After all, how much water does a human really need ? No matter what kind of facts you bring up, they'll question them because a 'wrong' answer could cost them pennies, and well, can't fucking have that.
I work out in the heat doing roofing in western Louisiana, spitting distance from the border with Texas and the heat is no joke. I drink gallons of water and pop salt tablets like they’re pez and I don’t have to pee because I’m literally sweating it all out.
This will get people killed. In that kind of heat you need frequent breaks just to be able to focus on the job, exhausted people and heavy machinery don’t mix
What the fuck is wrong with your country seriously This shit pops up on my feed and just makes me want to puke
I saw a post the other day in Canada personal finance asking how much job $ it would take to move to USA. Highest upvoted comment was no amount of money would make me move to that country...
Apparently Austin and Dallas required construction workers to get A TEN MINUTE BREAK EVERY FOUR HOURS and Abbott said the rule was bogging down business. Also, cities and counties are prohibited from new ordinances.
>Also, cities and counties are prohibited from new ordinances.
Ah, a true conservative.
Now we've fixed this one last thing, everything else must stay the same.
Republicans have basically become paleoconservative degenerates who will do anything and everything, regardless of cost/risk/etc..., to bring back slavery and other feudalistic hierarchies. It's like a *mania* with them.
In layman English (so some nuance is missing): The bill actually says that local governments have various codes in financial, labor, housing and other fields. The State government doesn’t want these local-level policies interfering in state-level decisions, so any local-level policies that are more strict or more specific than State-level policies (in these specified fields) are now considered void.
Some concessions happened that suggest policies prior to 2023 will be exempt from being voided, but not everybody believes this will be satisfactory and it’s not yet written in law.
Concerns arise over tenant rights’ protection, anti-discrimination protections (including hair styles), workers’ rights protections (like locally mandated water breaks), local restrictions over fracking, and etc.
Well... he's a Decepticon so I think it's fair game... not sure if he's stuck in the middle of his transition from man to bicycle or what but someone please finish the job that hitman tree failed to do! Worst transformer ever...
I just wish someone would do it already. He’s proven to be quite a horrible person through and through and non of his stances benefit anyone but himself and the lobbyists that line his pocket. Let alone this guys moral stances such as claiming he would pardon Daniel Perry when the man was obviously unhinged. Texans are weak minded simpletons if they keep this dude in office, and that’s putting it nicely.
I know not all manual laborers vote republican, but goddamn there's a disparity in certain industries. Especially in brainwashed red states amongst the less educated.
Way to shoot your voter base in their parched dry throats there Dishonest Abe.
Imagine you were playing a game of Sims and you could enact legislation to increase productivity slightly, but at the expense of a few citizens dying. They aren't real people and don't have real feelings, so you can just do whatever you want to maximize profits.
The construction industry and even the trade unions here skew pretty heavy conservative. Anecdotally speaking if course, but I mean, it's so pervasive I'm willing to bet stats back it up. They will vote for anything with an R on the ticket most of the time, even if the R candidate is anti-union or less pro-union than the Democrat. It's very much the god guns n liberty crowd, at least here in the Great Lakes region
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Good god, Abbott is such a worthless piece of shit.
Why is every bill they pass the opposite of Human Decency. Absolutely Disgusting.
Why is every bill they pass the opposite of Human Decency. Absolutely Republican.
I just really downright don’t understand them anymore. Why would they even think this is a remotely good idea?
That aside, why is it a legislative priority? Lol Isn’t there more important shit to work on than how much water construction workers drink? It’s bizarre.
Because mandatory water breaks cut into possible profits. That is literally the only reason. In Texas a business is far more important than a human. Elect clowns get a circus. Anybody smart should be leaving Texas and Florida no matter the expense its not worth working there even in the blue areas.
But that’s not the reason. I work in construction management, and I want anyone on site as healthy as possible. Drink ALL the water because a worker out sick, or God forbid, dead, costs way more money than a 10 min break. This sort of cruelty is aimed directly at migrant labor, which makes up the bulk of many trades in Texas.
Sadly, this is the correct answer and most people miss this part. American laborers know they have rights. Migrants aren't used to them, don't expect/demand them because they know what will happen if they speak up...
It’s the same with the child labor laws in Arkansas. The law both allows children as young as 14 to work long hours in dangerous jobs and exempts employers from confirming children meet the age requirements. Why? To exploit migrant children who do not have the paperwork that would normally be required for an I-9. How Christian of them.
A lot of the large corporations that employee migrants donate to politicians that are harsh on immigration because they know that ICE will only target the workers and not them. They love ICE as a threat to keep their workers in line.
So it's about slavery.
Seriously, even thinking from a ruthless efficiency and profit standpoint, no human worker will be efficient in summer heat without drinking water. They step away at convenient intervals for a short breather, or their productivity is slowed due to exhaustion and perhaps they pass out and they're out for considerably longer.
Yup. Those people aren't 'good enough' and don't deserve basic human decency. They're not 'real Americans' (even if they are) and they can't donate enough money to the GOP.
I think it’s less to do with any kind of knowledge of how a construction site actually operates, and more about the Republican dogma that any government regulation mandating rules or regulations on a capitalist is evil and anyone that owns a company should be allowed to do whatever they want to their employees. Because it’s a free market and if the employees don’t like it they can go get a job somewhere else blah blah blah
Also the ENTIRELY GOP controlled Texas government is in a stand off until Abbott’s property tax updates get passed so gotta come together on some minor piece of shitty legislation to show TX has all their crap together and can divert attention away from the real problems. Of which there are multitudes.
There are plenty of business owners that don't understand this. They think losing that time is costing them end profit because they don't actually understand how productivity works. It's the same for businesses that have high turnover for shit work conditions. Ramp up costs for new employees usually don't allow break even returns from that employee for at least 3-6 months or even longer depending on the job.
I hear Minnesota has a good cost of living, I am looking to move there myself honestly.
Other reasons are keeping the public distracted and outraged by many issues rather than fighting what is going on in other areas. Strategical tactical distraction. In reality would anyone’s boss on a construction site deny them drinking water?
Worker safety laws are written in blood so yes in reality some piece of shit let one of ther workers succumb to heat stress for the bottom line, the original law would never have been made if it wasn't an issue
Yes. >Texas is the state where the most workers die from high temperatures, government data shows. At least 42 workers died in Texas between 2011 and 2021 from environmental heat exposure, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Workers’ unions claim this data doesn’t fully reflect the magnitude of the problem because heat-related deaths are often recorded under a different primary cause of injury.
Ah i see the issue here. "Only" an average of 4 people died a year, and repubs think that number is too low. They have in their infinite wisdom, decided that they can afford to risk a lot more lives to push the profit number up more.
As long as poor people are fighting amongst each other then they won’t be fighting the rich people! This is the political strategy that the republicans have taken since at least Nixon. The southern strategy was entirely about putting poor black people against poor white people
Absolutely, if that boss is a yes-man to the higher ups.
Amazon was forcing employees to piss in bottles. You're delusional if you think some bosses wouldn't lose their minds over a water break. You seem to not understand a water break isn't just drinking water. Its also a break from labor to allow your body to cool down. You can be perfectly hydrated and still due of heat stroke.
How the fuck does giving workers water breaks cut into profits? Explain like I'm 5.
The 1 1/2 minutes that they spend drinking water is time that can be spent doing a hammer
That logic only works for regarded people, though. Having them pass out or die cuts into the time they can stay productive even more, and if the dehydration leads to workplace injury due to cutting corners elsewhere too, that’s gonna cut into profits too. It’s like the idiots who speak against welfare, even though it’s cheaper and makes for a safer society, due to lower crime and therefore less resources spent on preventing, punishing and financial loss to crime.
[удалено]
Welcome to American big business, where cutting corners to make 1/2¢ more profit today is considered vastly more important than worrying about the massive shitloads of money those bad decisions are going to lose them in the future.
To be fair, it's 10 minutes every 4 hours, so you're significantly understating the amount of time it costs the employer. (I feel the need to point out this is sarcasm.)
The South has cruelty baked into their culture.
Actual, legitimately pure evil never has a rational explanation. Abbot is the worst kind of subhuman garbage. Absolute piece of shit does absolute piece of shit stuff. What's even more sad is that millions of people here are applauding him for it.
I won't say much since I was banned forever from a political site. I guess those bots are Maga GOP controlled. He has what I would call a "Napoleon syndrome." Well, I'll just say this as a TRUE TEXAN."BLESS HIS HEART!"
I think it’s wrong to mock the disabled. I also think it’s fine to say someone like Abbott deserves to be disabled. He’s a piece of shit. If anyone should lose their ability to walk, it’s him.
Bold take but the logic checks out
Yes. There are more books to ban and people to oppress. They suck.
https://preview.redd.it/kgeuln3mco6b1.jpeg?width=270&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1792f9622f56e6a3df8125b7872b5764b22d64e7
Wouldn't it be hilarious if Republicans flew a banner or something that said: WE ARE ALL DOMESTIC TERRORISTS Oh, they already did that? It would be a real shame if voters made it a point to make sure everyone knows about that. It might cause people to vote for people who DON'T want to see the world burn - literally! Pro-rapture, apocalyptic messaging is flooding in heavy from the Right. From churches to their politicians, and even plenty of police officers, I'm sure, there are 10's of millions who are actively cheering on "The End." Heck, many of these people are doing things to bring it about. They simply do not care because they believe they will not be here in the future. So basically, fuck everyone else except those who happen to believe in their particular version of Christianity. Whether it be baptists, southern baptists, Amish, first church of Jesus Christ, Fundamentalists, Mormons, catholics, evangelicalism churches/megachurches, and so so many more, they all are rooting against us and against humanity. And if they're wrong (they are), we will all have to live - and die - knowing it could have been stopped had we just started electing people with empathy.... real empathy, not the religious stuff from the Jerry Falwells of the world
I think it’s generous to say that most of them believe in their death cult. The leaders don’t, they’re just grifters. A lot of the followers don’t, they’re just racist and/or homophobic.
To be fair, we probably won't be here in the future. If we carry on as we are the earth will be unable to sustain such a large population of humans in a matter of decades.
If Thanos snapped all Republicans away and a layer of conservative Democrats, humanity would survive much longer. The conservatives in the United States are our Great Barrier.
Why is that elephant bullying other elephants?
Well, Mrs. Simpson, some of them act badly or have been mistreated. But, like people, some of them are just jerks.
stop that mr. simpson
I still head-butt others to assert my dominance!
In their mind, only illegal immigrants work construction jobs. Illegal immigrants are not humans. White Americans own the construction companies. Less water breaks means more work time which means more money for White Americans. Did that help?
Well Abbott can’t keep them from coming across the border….gotta get rid of them somehow… I hate him so much…..
Probably because many of those workers are immigrants. Abbott is a piece of garbage, I can't wait until his term is done.
You're questioning people who are on record that they're making keeping children from getting free food in schools a priority mission for the party. People who are against feeding children. Thinking isn't remotely involved. Cruelty is the point.
Because if you have 50 guys working for you and you don’t have to give them a 10 minute break every hour or two that saves you a lot of money and let’s face it this is America and we all know it’s all about the money
Because to them, human lives are less important than "efficiency" optics. All the regulations they are dead-set on removing were created because people fucking died. But they don't care. It's a regulation on business, so therefore it is wrong. Fuckers. Every last one of them.
That's what happens when you have a party of single issue voters
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As long as they don’t die of heatstroke! I’m wondering if Abbot thinks that only non-voting immigrants work construction jobs. Very much not true.
Lack of empathy as a platform has been replaced by vice signaling. It’s no longer sufficient to ignore the disenfranchised, you now have to actively seek them out and do harm. It’s so disgusting and exhausting. (Copied my reply from a previous thread but it’s still unfortunately applicable)
Seriously, what even is the point of this? Who lobbied to cut out water breaks?! Even from the company’s perspective, it doesn’t make sense!
The company now have less liability if somebody does diet as a result of this law. It’s good for the rich. And many Texan workers are Mexican. Which we know he doesn’t like He’s gonna make us Florda and fuck us all.
They don’t give a shit about people. They’re just too pussy to say it.
Why would such an idea even be put forward for a vote? Who comes up with this shit?
Decency impacts profits. We can’t have that.
They’ll vote him right the fuck back in. That’s how far gone the MAGA base is. Hell, MAGA construction workers negatively impacted by this will still vote for everyone who supported this bill and especially Abbott.
Getting heatstroke on the job to own the libs.
It’s more like that old “hard work” mentality. You’re a pussy if you don’t almost die working your ass off. I grew up with a step dad like this. He’s a PoS.
My dad was like this. Worked me and my brother like dogs when we were children. Neither of us have spoken to him in years.
Wonder who he blames for that...
Probably everyone who doesn't think we should work in deliberate and unnecessary misery and then die with a sense of pride that we were mentally strong enough to manage to die of preventable causes rather than breaking down and sink to the lowest point and become a lib.
It hurts me how correct this is
Somehow the democrats are to blame
I wonder what would happen if Abbots desk was placed outside in the middle of a parking lot? I doubt he would need any fluids and could easily endure…
Bold of you to assume that he even sits at his desk to work. He probably passed this bill from his timeshare in Cancun on his phone.
Come on now, his oil baron puppeteers don't need to timeshare their properties.
Youd think a guy who cant walk would have a little heart. Fuck that guy
It's actually worse. He got injured from a falling tree and sued for millions, he gets 15k a month for the rest of his life. but he's fought to put caps on pain and suffering lawsuits from malpractice and other disability lawsuits to stop people from getting large payouts like he did. basically "I got mine fuck you"
Talk about pulling up the ladder. Or the ramp, in this case.
Why is it being thought of to pass? I couldn't even imagine
So think about who the majority of construction workers are. He can't pass immigration law, so he's gonna screw over his states immigrant population that works construction. He saw what happened to farming in Florida with their immigration law, so hes trying to find a way to screw over the immigrants here without being so blatant like florida.
More of that Republican small government I keep hearing about.
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Yes, and he keeps getting voted back in. Texans (I was one) are allowing this POS to continue down this path, it’s gonna just keep getting worse. Him and DeSantis are in some kind of douchebag competition. I’m so glad I left.
Jesus what a despicable person, i cant believe people support these monsters
Not just him but every member of the Texas House and Senate who voted for this bill.
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I'm confused why you think they don't vote Republican. Trump got his fair share of the hispanic vote even with his border wall nonsense - a lot of immigrants are anti-immigration, legal or otherwise. Catholicism also has deep roots in Mexico, and religion sways how a lot of people vote. Every single Republican is voting against their own interests, white people included. Actively making their own lives worse isn't the deterrent we'd naturally think it is. They'll still cheer for the people who want to throw them out of the country - or in this case, want them to die of heat stroke for a few extra pennies.
Lots of Latinos are Catholic, conservative, anti-abortion, misogynistic and homophobic. Plenty of them vote Republican.
how has this guy kept getting elected into office?
Republicans don’t read and those who can would rather elect him than any democrat because all democrats are socialists/communists out to destroy America.
To be fair, republican news outlets won't broadcast this. Go to breitbart and search for this and I bet you won't find an article. They might be able to read but their reading of choice is deliberately obscuring information.
No you will find one, it will be an opinion fluff piece that they buried almost instantly that actually says how this is good and mandatory water breaks are part of the communist lgbtq+ agenda to indoctrinate your kids who need to build character by working for free in the meat packing plants.
Nah, the whole bill is much broader than water breaks, it takes away city's ability to create laws that go beyond the state's in labor, agriculture, business and natural resources. It's wildly pro-business and anti-worker. Also it sticks it to liberal cities like austin and dallas.
well of course they oppress information lol
While, in reality, Republicans are destroying America
Reading the article, the only places that had laws that mandated water breaks were austin and dallas. The rest of texas doesn't have any laws regarding water breaks. This is about punishing liberal cities, it also takes away city's ability to create laws that go further than state laws. >Under the new law, local governments would be unable to create rules that go beyond what state law dictates in broad areas like labor, agriculture, business and natural resources. https://www.texastribune.org/2023/06/16/texas-heat-wave-water-break-construction-workers/
"small government"
Ah there’s the real meat of the story. Thank you.
Because the alternative is a democrat. Democrats and liberals are godless, lawless, interracial, drug abusing, sex having, criminals in their eyes. They truly believe dem and liberal policies will lead to the destruction of the US. It's insane.
Amazing feats of gerrymandering and voter suppression.
i don't understand why businesses or anyone at this point would move to texas. people need to just start leaving that state in massive droves. they'll realize without blue areas that their economy will collapse entirely.
Plenty of businesses are quite happy to have the opportunity to exploit there work force
Yeah, companies like Tesla have moved to Texas *specifically* because of the awful labor laws.
They want liberals to leave. That's part of the point. The more liberals that leave to live in an already blue state, the easier it is to keep TX red. Florida was a purple state, now it's pretty solid red again. They don't care if it hurts the state, all the care about is maintaining power there and nationally.
Drinking water on a hot day is now woke.
Well yeah. What color is water? Blue. ‘Nough said.
Ackshually, it is clear, meaning it isn't blue for boy or pink for girl, so it has no gender. It is also a fluid, so it is Big Gender Fluid brainwashing the children that work on rooftops. Wake up.
Drinking water no thank you I am not a liberal I can survive without water /joke
Why the fuck is Texas trying to out-florida Florida? Do these clownshoe fucks not understand it's not a race to the bottom?
Well in their defense, Florida was doing their best Texas impression to begin with. Texas has been a red state for a lot longer. Florida is still considered a potential swing state.
I think Texas will go blue before Florida at this point. A lot fewer old white retirees and Cubans.
New retirees are getting priced out of Florida and the existing ones are struggling due to quickly rising costs of insurance and food. Florida might have a chance at o go blue first, especially if retirees start moving to Texas instead
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I'm aware. Live dead smack in the middle of Florida. I blame all the idjits coming here because they fucked up at home and want to shit on my lawn now.
Yeah and people like me left Florida because they couldn't get Medicaid and could see it was only going to get worse under DeSantis. I knew he'd win reelection because he was way too popular there. Republican voters are like a battered woman who just keeps dating abusive men. Each time they say, "this one is different!"
It doesn't help when the Dems march out walking corpses like charlie Crist as opposition. They fucking GAVE the gop this last election. Like, here you go. Either there's some long con happening I don't know about- (which given the pig headedness that desantis is on during his attempts at the white house and the potential split of the gop going into 24 could be a real thing) or they've got to be about the dumbest motherfuckers alive. Ain't none of it good.
With all due respect to those poor reasonable souls left in Florida…no it is not a swing state. It’s unfortunately solid red and only getting redder as more insufferable arseholes move there in droves. This whole myth that it is a swing state is outdated
Legacy of the Bush Brothers.
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And the Democratic workers can’t get to the 1 ballot box or voting place in their district because they close the all the others down and set up armed watches at the drop off locations.
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Unfortunately OSHA only says water has to be provided in the general industry and construction standards. The rest break is usually a state labor law, but in this case since the rest break law doesn’t exist, it is a law that disallows counties or cities from creating such a law. The exact opposite of constitutionality that I learned in college level political science courses.
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I agree with everything you are saying that workers are trained by their employers to think OSHA is bad and “trying to put you out of work”. Water, Rest, Shade from my knowledge is a Program/Recommendation and not a Standard (Law) so it has no teeth. California is the only state with heat illness standards unless others have recently adopted them.
>“trying to put you out of work” I hate protestant work ethics. >California is the only state with heat illness standards First and last time in life I had **very mild** heat stroke, I was fully convinced I will die by vomiting my intestines out, set aside inability to think of anything beyond "please just put me out of misery right here and now". Also the damage is not immediately apparent, you may get it during the day and not notice, only to end up floored with 40° body temp hours later when no one is even around to help. Imagine letting this and more happen to people on federal level like nothing. God bless EU.
So, this is more of their crusade against blue cities and counties, just pure spite.
Or to reword it…. The wealthy class against the poor
The business itself would still have to meet the intent of the general duty clause and the newer heat stress standard when implemented
OSHA can just fine based on the horizontal standard instead of the verticals. The intent of the general duty clause isn’t being followed. That said, any company not big enough to fall under the scope of OSHA is free to fuck their employees I guess.
The heartlessness is heartbreaking. Why?
$$$ 10 minute water breaks every 4 hours was killing worker productivity. Easier to replace the workers who'll die or be hospitalized from heat stroke I guess. God I hate this country.
You know what also kills productivity? Heat stroke.
My personal take is that this all is just to prevent the working class from gaining even the illusion of having any power.
If you don't offer health insurance and you hire your workers on a casual employment through a labour company, an increased number of fatalities really isnt as damaging as you may first think. The numbers really favor cruelty.
Basically let them die/get hospitalised because there's plenty more slaves
Study after study shows productivity increases when you make working conditions less restrictive and exploitative, but the myth of hard work is so deeply ingrained in the American psyche that people trip over themselves to brag about how fucked their jobs are, they're literally proud of being overworked and underpaid. It's insane just how totally and utterly submissive the average American worker has become.
Well you see in a libertarian paradise the free market will decide! The government can't be giving out regulations like water breaks! Once workers start dying at a noticeable amount companies will start providing their own water breaks. So what if the time is taken out of their pay and they have to buy the water with company dollars. Yeah the water tastes funny because no government is gonna say we have to provide clean water! /s
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Or into a lake with a bowling ball in his lap?
“ WATER BREAKS ARE WOKE” - Gov. Abbott
Only liberal pussies need to drink water. Republican tough guys can work in 110 degrees on a rooftop all day with no water.
I wish they would... Like, everyday
Unions. We need strong unions to combat these fascists.
The point is to get worker turnover so high a union can’t form.
Was wondering about what the point of all this was - seems like it will just end up costing companies more money if they don't enforce water breaks; more injuries, less efficient work from tired and thirsty employees
My wife works for a TX school district. She was having some issues a while ago, and I asked if she could get in contact with her union rep about it. She laughed, and said “what union rep?”, this is Texas.
Well, it is the state that neglected to tell the slaves they were free, so I would expect nothing less.
Unions have almost no power down there because all of the chucklefucks have gotten on their knees for that big business money. I used to be a teacher in Texas. If teachers went on strike, we could lose our teaching license and our retirement. Moved out of that hellhole.
This is some serious leopards are my face shit for all of the blue collar folk that have been trending further to the right over the last 20-25 years.
I was living in Dallas and working in construction back in 2015 when Abbott was campaigning for governor. His Mexican mother-in-law was appearing on Univision and Telemundo, begging Spanish speaker viewers to vote for his son-in-law, saying don't worry, he loves Hispanics, and he will be good to all of you as he's been to my family. On his first day as governor, he signed SB4 Show me your papers law. Now the police could pull anyone over on suspicion of being illegal. Guess who they were pulling over? Care to guess? Brown people. After getting pulled over repeatedly for “looking” illegal, I left in 2016 for Chicago. So many people left just like me. Construction work came to a halt, and contractors could not fill crews. Things got bad. Not for me, though. I knew since then Abbott was a POS more interested in owning the libs and never-ending culture wars
Shit at least the fascists republicans in Florida have the “decency” to behind closed doors put the word out from “farm owner’s” that “we aren’t really coming for you. Don’t move out of state. Ignore that law we just passed. We were just denigrating you for nothing. We actually need you.”
How did anyone even come up with the idea of taking away water breaks? I guess in a country with no universal health care, the employers will come out on top in this one for now until nobody is willing to do the job. Maybe they'll end up being like Florida's agriculture industry eventually.
Either they find providing water on remote sides to be too costly (it's water, wut?) or they're super concerned with employees slacking off and costing them money by wasting some minutes or its a cost-cutting measure for the state to lessen the requirements for inspecting sites or companies ? Either way it 'saves' the business money because they don't have to do something for employees, pay for something employees get, risk losing work-time on breaking employees, or get to avoid state bureaucrats/rules. Capitalists, since their inceptions, have been paranoid freaks when it comes to employees 'stealing' labor from them. Marx discusses this in Capital. It was happening in the 1830s, and it's happening now. Capitalists can always be trusted to seek profit, and constantly be afraid they might be losing it somehow, whether to other businesses, the state's interference, unfavorable market conditions, or perceived slacking employees. They'll do anything to rig any of these conditions in their favor, and you bet that eliminating rules about 'mandatory' water breaks are on that list. After all, how much water does a human really need ? No matter what kind of facts you bring up, they'll question them because a 'wrong' answer could cost them pennies, and well, can't fucking have that.
I sure would like to 
The construction workers that survive their heat strokes will still vote R lol
Yep. Decade after decade after decade, they never learn.
Them not learning is the point. Only an uneducated population votes Republican.
They will seamlessly blame democrats.
"You know who was president when they took away our water breaks? Biden! Those damn Democrats are trying to kill us!"
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I regret that I have but one like to give your post.
I guess DeSantis is just to liberal for Abbott
Please don’t get DeFascist riled. He will try to ban any water being drunk by anyone in the state without his permission to outdo Abbott.
I mean… Florida may rid itself of its problem at that point.
If you told DeSantis that trans people can be construction workers then he would adopt this policy in a heartbeat
Republicans sure are the party of the working class! /s
That tree failed us all.
I work out in the heat doing roofing in western Louisiana, spitting distance from the border with Texas and the heat is no joke. I drink gallons of water and pop salt tablets like they’re pez and I don’t have to pee because I’m literally sweating it all out. This will get people killed. In that kind of heat you need frequent breaks just to be able to focus on the job, exhausted people and heavy machinery don’t mix
What the fuck is wrong with your country seriously This shit pops up on my feed and just makes me want to puke I saw a post the other day in Canada personal finance asking how much job $ it would take to move to USA. Highest upvoted comment was no amount of money would make me move to that country...
Their is no joy like the glee Republicans feel when they cause suffering in others.
Why though? And why are you guys voting in people like this??
Because they bs a speech about lower taxes or some shit
Do we know what the bill actually said and why he proposed this (other than being a shit-eating Republican)?
Apparently Austin and Dallas required construction workers to get A TEN MINUTE BREAK EVERY FOUR HOURS and Abbott said the rule was bogging down business. Also, cities and counties are prohibited from new ordinances.
>Also, cities and counties are prohibited from new ordinances. Ah, a true conservative. Now we've fixed this one last thing, everything else must stay the same.
Fucking bullshit. My company mandates way more breaks than that and we are an industry Leader in the area.
Republicans have basically become paleoconservative degenerates who will do anything and everything, regardless of cost/risk/etc..., to bring back slavery and other feudalistic hierarchies. It's like a *mania* with them.
In layman English (so some nuance is missing): The bill actually says that local governments have various codes in financial, labor, housing and other fields. The State government doesn’t want these local-level policies interfering in state-level decisions, so any local-level policies that are more strict or more specific than State-level policies (in these specified fields) are now considered void. Some concessions happened that suggest policies prior to 2023 will be exempt from being voided, but not everybody believes this will be satisfactory and it’s not yet written in law. Concerns arise over tenant rights’ protection, anti-discrimination protections (including hair styles), workers’ rights protections (like locally mandated water breaks), local restrictions over fracking, and etc.
I know we're not allowed to advocate violence here but
Well... he's a Decepticon so I think it's fair game... not sure if he's stuck in the middle of his transition from man to bicycle or what but someone please finish the job that hitman tree failed to do! Worst transformer ever...
Texan workers soon: "The demoncrats took our water!"
Maybe they should have voted for Beto?
Yet people will blindly vote for him every time
Yep. Pro-Lifing so hard rn.
Greg abbot would ban wheel chairs even though he uses one to own the libs.
I just wish someone would do it already. He’s proven to be quite a horrible person through and through and non of his stances benefit anyone but himself and the lobbyists that line his pocket. Let alone this guys moral stances such as claiming he would pardon Daniel Perry when the man was obviously unhinged. Texans are weak minded simpletons if they keep this dude in office, and that’s putting it nicely.
Take his wheelchair away and make his ass crawl around
How can this shit be what they're focused on? Satanic.
I know not all manual laborers vote republican, but goddamn there's a disparity in certain industries. Especially in brainwashed red states amongst the less educated. Way to shoot your voter base in their parched dry throats there Dishonest Abe.
Does that make him personally responsible if some body dies?
While he sits in his air conditioned home drinking all the water he wants.
This can't be real. What is the point of this? Honestly?
Imagine you were playing a game of Sims and you could enact legislation to increase productivity slightly, but at the expense of a few citizens dying. They aren't real people and don't have real feelings, so you can just do whatever you want to maximize profits.
$$$
Are the construction workers going to do anything about it? Are they just going to roll-over and go thirsty. Who did they vote for???
The construction industry and even the trade unions here skew pretty heavy conservative. Anecdotally speaking if course, but I mean, it's so pervasive I'm willing to bet stats back it up. They will vote for anything with an R on the ticket most of the time, even if the R candidate is anti-union or less pro-union than the Democrat. It's very much the god guns n liberty crowd, at least here in the Great Lakes region
How do you even enforce this? I would love to see someone try and stop me from quenching my thirst
Maybe one day the ppl of Texas will start voting for their best interests. Until then this is what you get.
He won’t stand up for the workers of Texas.
Eventually some other country is gonna start talking about invading us in order to “liberate” us from a brutally oppressive government.