Greg Abbott Pretty Sure Texas Construction Workers Can Go Without Water

The Texas governor has banned mandated water breaks for construction workers, because 'pro-business.'

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!

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.

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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.

Not to get conspiratorial, but I would bet that a large part of the issue is that it is easier to find people willing to work construction in places like Dallas and Austin, that have these regulations, than it is to find them in places that do not — leading to more actual economic growth. Abbott probably also doesn't want it to be more pleasant (and possible) for people to live in these areas than to live in the areas of Texas that do not have such protections. The big fear among conservatives is always that if people see how pleasant life is with progressive policies, they will never vote Republican again. It's a lot easier to keep something from people than it is to take it away. Once they have it, the "But that's COMMUNISM!" and "Think about the job creators!" arguments just don't have the same effect.

What I would love to see, because I'm a little bit of a vindictive bitch about these matters, would be for President Biden to launch an infrastructure project and poach as many Texas construction workers as possible for work in other states, depriving Texas of the ability to build anything at all. Obviously that wouldn't happen because people have lives and obligations in their own states, but it would be highly satisfying.

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