Texas rules requiring water breaks for construction workers will be nullified

The amount of homeless drugs and crime in the Bay made me immediately regret moving, but stayed for the $$$ for a bit.

Texas does many stupid things but so does CA and on top of that CA is expensive as hell to live in

I don't care if the rent in Texas was negative.

Both are dysfunctional in completely different ways, and both succeed in very opposite AND similar ways, too.

Regarding “homelessness and crime”, though— I have not noticed a significant difference feeling in safety in either. And in both I lived in the “city” (Dallas and Los Angeles) rather than sprawling suburbs.

I do feel actually a lot more worried in Texas about gun violence when I go back, and find myself always mentally making a note of exit plans in e.g. concert venues or malls back in Texas.

I personally prefer the people in California more than in Texas, but that’s a subjective value judgement. That’s ultimately what keeps me here.

Whenever I order takeaway food, I also try to bring my containers.

I doubt you meant it this way, but this is the thing that peeves me most about the Republican party continuing to spout on about local control, small government, and personal freedoms. As soon as a locality makes a choice they don't like (bag bans), or a person uses their freedom in a way they don't like (marrying the wrong person, consuming the wrong plant), suddenly the same people are scrambling to explain why those things are exceptions to their principles, because, well they're bad. There's never a stronger argument for why it should be an exception just "we think it's bad". Yet the whole point of these supposed principles is that these decisions should be made locally or personally. Otherwise it's just as valid for someone to say <Republican pet issue> should be decided locally because it's bad.

The issue is city populations are the minority here. The laws they passed only apply to their cities.

Their right to self govern is being overridden by the majority state legislature.

You are literally arguing my point but you don't seem to understand whose protections are being trampled on by whom.

This is meant to disempower local jurisdictions which pass laws contrary to Republican aims. Everything from Harris County's motor voter law that let people drive through vote to DAs saying they won't enforce state laws.

See also a law that targets elections in counties over a certain size, of which there is only one and leans Democrat.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/28/us/texas-voting-laws-harr...

If Texas is such a terrible place to live, why are so many people moving there?

I’ve worked in heavily OSHA-regulated industries (complete with “random unannounced safety inspections”, including being interviewed by OSHA). At least in my experience in Australia, OSHA was pretty good about enforcing the more effective and less onerous safety measures (that neither us nor our boss cared much about, but objectively did benefit from, so OSHA did good work there), and not enforcing the less effective and more onerous safety measures (some of which were frankly ridiculous, like requiring three points of contact at all times when climbing a staircase to a tool storage shed - it is quite difficult to carry anything up stairs when you have to have both hands on the railings whenever you lift a foot!)

Perhaps that is the best argument for removing these laws. OSHA has a lot of expertise in managing the balance of safety and productivity, so they should be the ones in charge of deciding on how often and how mandatory heat breaks should be. These laws made by non-OSHA bodies are perhaps too rigid: they could simultaneously be overkill for some situations (like indoor installations) while being wholly insufficient for other situations (like road repair) - and yet the workers, the employees, and the safety inspectors all working together in the goal of safety are unable to adapt them to the situation because it rests with uninvolved (and potentially even uninformed) lawmakers instead. I’d note that from reading the article it doesn’t seem like this is the major motivation behind the attempt to repeal these laws, although something like this is marshaled as an argument.

edit to add: apparently OSHA standards already limit work in 104F conditions to a maximum of 20 minutes per hour and unlimited cool-down breaks whenever the worker requests it, which is far more generous than these water break laws. There is some suggestion that in fact the real purpose of these water break laws were to give companies a way to circumvent the more restrictive OSHA requirements. Things may be much more complicated than they first appeared.

https://efte.twc.texas.gov/d_breaks.html

"Rest or coffee breaks, defined as 20 minutes or less, are compensable hours worked under 29 C.F.R. 785.18, since they are regarded as being for the benefit of both the employer and the employee."

This is 29 C.F.R. 785.18, a federal regulation

https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-29/subtitle-B/chapter-V/s...

I’d expect to see stools at union grocery stories (but I don’t) so it must not be that big of a complaint.

I have seen that almost all now have those padded floor things.

Is it maybe the point that not every commonsense-ism needs legislation backing it, IF it is truly respected and honored universally as common sense.

Or is this a news item because there are tyrants who forbid workers from drinking water and taking bathroom breaks? If so, that's bizarre and sad.

Go search https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/ for “bathroom” and you’ll find plenty of examples of low wage workers being limited in how long and how often they are allow to relieve themselves.