Gov. Abbott Screws Over Texas Workers During Record Heat

Texas has been experiencing a record-breaking heat wave that has now spread across the southern United States. And while this was happening, Texas governor Greg Abbott signed a bill that eliminates mandatory water breaks for outdoor construction workers. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.

Link - https://truthout.org/articles/abbott-signs-bill-axing-construction-workers-water-breaks-amid-record-heat/

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Texas has been experiencing a record-breaking heat wave that's now spread across the southern United States. And while this was happening, unbelievable, Texas Governor Abbott signed a bill that eliminates mandatory water breaks for outdoor construction workers. How crazy. Why would you even dream of putting your name on this when the temperatures out there are 120 degrees? And all it says is that, look, every intervals we need to give people water breaks so they don't dehydrate and die. 120 degrees topped off already. And you got people working on roofs, and this idiot governor says, oh, no, we don't wanna give them water breaks. Do you think he just didn't read it? He didn't read it or what?
It's possible, but even if you're looking at this as a, from a standpoint of, oh, we're protecting corporations, you're still not even protecting corporations with this. Because when people drop dead on your job site and you're paying them, you're gonna look at some kinda liability. So he is actually opening up corporations to worse things happening to them. But this is just, this is stupid.
Well, explain. No, no. Talk about, that's a good point. Expound on that just a little bit. He's inviting lawsuits and terrible things to happen to corporations.
Right. So if I'm running a construction site, if I'm the the manager or the owner, everybody on that site is my responsibility, legally my responsibility. You get hurt, you drop dead from exhaustion, that's on me. So I would be held liable in court by the member's, or person's family. You know, anything that happens, those people will be sued. And it's gonna be a pretty easy lawsuit.
Well, I mean, people die from this.
They do. Every year in Texas.
I mean, every year. Matter of fact, I was looking at, was there 42 deaths over just the last, less than nine years because of heat already. And then since those nine years, I think it's heated up another three degrees. And so if you've got somebody working in construction, why would you say, no, you can't give them a water break every 20 minutes? When OSHA and everybody that studies it said, that's what you must do to avoid that worker becoming ill or dying.
And it is, it's almost a scientific formula. They've found, okay, if you work for 50 minutes in the sun, 10 minutes in the shade with water will cool your body down enough for another 50 minutes.
It's not like it's tough science, is it?
No. This is just, it's stupid and cruel. And I still, for the life of me, can't figure out the reasoning for it. He hasn't given us anything. But this is.
Chamber of Commerce.
Yeah.
Chamber of Commerce.
We can't let them rest for 10 minutes.
Yeah. Chamber of Commerce. I swear, you know, I don't think people have a grasp at how ugly the whole US Chamber of Commerce thing has become. They're controlled by 19 of the biggest corporations on the globe. Everybody believes that the Chamber of Commerce is a mom and pop organization. No. Chamber of Commerce is there for people like this. They're always the front man. They're paying out the big money and the people paying out the big money are the biggest corporations on the globe. The big energy companies, the big pharmacy companies. Big construction companies. So this guy's getting money from that end of it, I'm sure. But how do you become so less human that you say, no, we can't give you water breaks?