Texas worker accused of being on drugs was dying of heatstroke
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
How often are these guys taking breaks? 10 minutes every four hours seems like not nearly enough break time even in normal conditions. Yet somehow the governor signed a bill saying they're not entitled to even that? What is going on in USA with workers right? Is this normal?
This is Texas. Other states have different rules. For comparison, at a heat index of 100F, Oregon requires 30 minute breaks every 1 hour. Here is more detail (PDF): https://osha.oregon.gov/OSHAPubs/factsheets/fs90.pdf
https://www.constructiondive.com/news/osha-heat-standard-con...
One side much much much more than the other. Only one side banning mandated water breaks.
In both USA and Saudi, it seemed to be more based on company rules, rather than state/federal rules.
Is that how you got your username?
Thankfully I never had any safety incidents. But nothing I was doing was safe work while under the effects of sleep deprivation. We had a dozen different ways to kill people directly and hundreds of things could go wrong to kill people in more Rube Goldberg fashions. I was unhappy with the work environment so I left.
Some of those include:
- A 3 mile long cable under +/- 10,000 lbs of tension
- A powerful neutron generator that can be started with two button clicks on a windows desktop
- Little radioactive source materials like the one that was lost in Brazil[0]
- High voltage & current electricity
- Shaped charges[1] (these are really only used in military and oil wells AFAIK)
Wasn't aware of any applicability in that space, but freely admit I've not spent many cycles on contemplating the issue. Like I guess being a fundamental part of some diagnostic or sensor gear maybe... but neutrons sources? Gamma I might could understand. Neutrons're just good for making shit hard to dispose of I thought.
The cable would legit give me nightmares though.
If you're not at liberty to say, that's fine, but man. I gotcha.
> does not, except as expressly provided by this Act, affect the authority of a municipality to adopt, enforce, or maintain an ordinance or rule that relates to the control, care, management, welfare, or health and safety of animals;
so it at least gives the appearance that it isn't going to allow people to just do whatever they want with animals.
But then much farther down in the miscellaneous provisions section it says:
Sec. 229.901. AUTHORITY TO REGULATE ANIMAL BUSINESSES.
(a) A municipality may not adopt, enforce, or maintain an ordinance or rule that restricts, regulates, limits, or otherwise impedes a business involving the breeding, care, treatment, or sale of animals or animal products, including a veterinary practice, or the business ’s transactions if the person operating that business holds a license for the business that is issued by the federal government or a state.
(b) Except as provided by this subsection, a municipality may not adopt, enforce, or maintain an ordinance or rule that restricts, regulates, limits, or otherwise impedes the retail sale of dogs or cats. A municipality may enforce or maintain an ordinance or rule adopted before April 1, 2023, that restricts, regulates, limits, or otherwise impedes the retail sale of dogs or cats until the state adopts statewide regulation for the retail sale of dogs or cats, as applicable.
Freedom.
I suppose this is why we need laws because morality and ethics are beyond some of us.
Republican lawmakers pushing the new law have said it eliminates a “hodgepodge of onerous and burdensome regulations” that Texas businesses face. The effort aims to prevent cities and counties from enacting progressive policies that counter the state Republican supermajority’s aims.
“For too long, progressive municipal officials and agencies have made Texas small businesses jump through contradictory and confusing hoops,” said the Republican state representative Dustin Burrows, who introduced the bill.
[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/23/greg-abbott-...
The 2-party system in the US causes hundreds of distinct groups and ideologies to be lumped into either a D or R, regardless of any ideological cohesion to any particular label- left, right, liberal, conservative, authoritarian, libertarian, etc.
The state-level government in Texas is controlled by the Republican party, but specifically by a neoconservative, nationalist, social conservative-Christian cohort. The fiscal conservatives and libertarian small-government conservatives are essentially powerless, minority members of either the Democrat or Republican party, and individuals whose views match those labels will likely vote split-ticket in most elections rather than a straight-party voting pattern.
In essence, while the comment I'm responding to is alluding to a hypocrisy of beliefs, a better interpretation is that the "small government" conservatives don't really hold any power in the Texas state Republican establishment. To the extent that any of them vote R, they're mostly doing so in a "choose which of 2 bad choices seems least bad" context.
This isn't even hypocrisy, it's just lying.
Any reasonable company would already have water breaks more often than that, and presumably OSHA has rules for that too.
I’m a wedding photographer. Sometimes we hire on second photographers for a day. Should I get in trouble if I didn’t realize in was within specific city limits that mandated I give a defined water break to that second photographer after so many hours? Most weddings you just get water whenever you can, here and there.
>Each week you might be in a different town, chasing whatever work is available to you. I can absolutely see it being onerous/possibly impossible to follow different ordinances in each city.
Even our small town of 7000 people managed to employ two entire construction empires. If the amount of money in that system is not enough for you to give enough of a crap to provide required breaks and other health important things for your workers, I cry no tears when you are fined.
It's always the same people crying about "onerous" regulation because they refuse to even do a simple google search.
>Any reasonable company would already have water breaks more often than that, and presumably OSHA has rules for that too.
Then you have nothing to worry about. If you have rules that are above and beyond any existing standard, you are not violating a standard. This really isn't complicated and people are bending themselves in half to try and justify this clearly hostile act. Stop with the devil's advocate bullshit.
Sorry about the inconvenience, but maybe being an employer isn't for you if you don't give a damn about the people for whom you're responsible.
My wife is my only second shooter so obviously she's treated well, or she wouldn't do it. In my contract is the clause that we can't be subjected to dangerous working conditions, and a few weeks ago I had a wedding where I absolutely needed to take a break to sit in the shade and drink.
Central Texas has been straddling that red/black line for the past month, and I suspect this would be classified as "moderate work," so that would require 40 minutes of rest for every 20 minutes of work. Thankfully, Gov. Abbott cannot make it illegal for the Army to enforce this.
This is Texas, which is having a competition with Florida to see who can "own" the "libs" harder, which usually means causing harm to people who already have mediocre situations because it upsets people who aren't heartless.
The main situation that the state is trying to prevent is conflicting laws.
Let me give you an example - let's say you are building a road, which happens to travel through multiple jurisdictions. Now in one jurisdiction, there may be a rule that requires one set of employee benefits and different benefits in other jurisdictions.
Now, which one should the contractor follow? What happens when they conflict? And it's easy to be in two jurisdictions at once, which really causes a problem. Now clearly this example doesn't hold because the government builds roads, not private entities, so this activity is excluded from the law. But it is as simple illustration.
One side note - a friend of mine has a house that sits on a county and city border, and is taxed in 2 different cities and 2 different counties here on the outskirts of Houston. He gets multiple tax bills per year, and doing anything to his house is a nightmare because of the different codes (yes, he has multiple building codes in different parts of his house). This is what the state is trying to reduce.
Finally, from reading the article, it looks like the employer is guilty of negligence, and probably gross negligence at that. Any rational human being in Texas gives people breaks, and if this article is at all accurate, someone needs to go to jail for a really long time...preferably without air conditioning.
[0] - https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/88R/billtext/pdf/HB02127F....
This part is the problem.
(Personally, I would like to see a federal law that says that if there is an actual conflict the higher authority wins, or if that's not an option the person/company can choose which one to follow--document it and tell anyone trying to enforce the other to pound sand.)
More likely is cases where multiple jurisdictions want their piece of the pie. For example, the house mentioned in this thread straddling a line and getting taxed by both. Or contractors that need licenses for each area they might reasonably work--in all too many cases this is just a revenue grab.
(Spoiler: it’s for eroding local control for democratic run major cities and not for preventing conflicts)
States agreed to some written terms, limiting their own sovereignty, to join a union. That union then ignores terms it dislikes. States try to enforce those terms, but suddenly the union changes tune, finds that enforcing (some) terms actually is important, and stops those states.
But preventing laws from changing from city to city is the real tragedy.
And you are talking about the same state that asked the rangers to push people into the Rio and not to give water to the immigrants? At some point, you would think those are your fellow people.
Preventing laws from being humane is the real tragedy.
Think that over - states have no standing in enforcing the terms of their joining the union? On the other hand states are allowed, and even forced (by threatening to cut federal funds), to enforce federal laws and edicts, such as drinking age [1], transgender bathroom access [2], or not hiring enough minority-owned tunneling companies [3].
Only when it comes to enforcing federal laws that the federal government would rather not see enforced, do suddenly issues of standing and federal jurisdiction appear - as if states have no interest in who enters their territory.
States and their populations direct how the federal government should act by passing laws. That government then ignores those laws at their leisure, and prevents the states from enforcing them. Doesn't that sound a bit undemocratic to you? Though that accusation seems to be levied only when convenient, with little relation to its meaning.
[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/07/four-ti...
[2] https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-admin-holding-school-...
[3] https://www.kiro7.com/news/federal-government-threatens-pull...
Also, as an aside, I find it very interesting you mentioned transgender people, but not gay people in that bathroom example - the ban was on sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination of all forms, why did you choose to single one particular kind out?
100% yes. This was the explicit opinion of several founders, to the point of publicly stating that any provision for any sort of "exit" of the union makes it entirely pointless. The constitution forever bound us, purposely, intentionally, and with an explicit supremacy clause that makes it VERY clear the Federal government is in charge.
We are NOT a federation, were never meant to be, and there is no honest reading of the constitution within context that comes up with such a claim.
This was done because the Articles of Confederation was such an abysmal failure that left the country weak, bickering, and basically a bunch of small kingdoms of governors refusing to interact in ways that benefited the country as a whole. We tried the "weak, small, limited federal government that lets the states do mostly their own thing" and the result was very nearly the end of the country in its infancy. The constitution was entirely "Sign this and we be strong together, or we are re-conquered in twenty years when europe gets it's shit together"
And when the federal government ignores the likewise federal laws binding it and directing its actions? In any other situation, if the executive branch ignores the legislative or judicial ones, it's called fascism.
* Russia
* China
... yup
https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/sites/default/files/opi...
There are hundreds of situations like this. I picked this one at random.
There were also bizarre municipal regulations on taxis, signs, and all sorts of other things.
This is not at all what the state is trying to reduce. The number of people who live in houses that straddle jurisdictional barriers is vanishingly small. And I’m sorry to be uncharitable to your friend, but what else on earth would you expect if you choose to buy into such a bizarrely situated property?
And I doubt you can use both libraries. Typically such straddle places are deemed to be located where their front door is.
> Now, which one should the contractor follow?
What do you mean by "benefits"?
Generally what are usually considered benefits in employment are things like health insurance, life insurance, paid time off, retirement plans, life insurance, and similar.
What jurisdiction's law controls those would generally be the jurisdiction(s) that the employer legally resides in. A city regulation with requirements or restrictions on say employee health insurance plans would only apply to businesses that reside in that city.
The city regulations that an employer from another location doing a contracting job in the city would have to worry about would be regulations that affect how the actual job must be done.
For example here in Washington different counties have different regulations on how deep underground water lines must be, because different counties have different frost lines and so a depth that would work fine in one country would might be a pending burst pipe in another.
I begged for OJ that they had right there, and they refused.
There need to be criminal penalties for refusing medical aide to someone. It should be OK to demand a drug test, but not to refuse medical aide.
How would one unjust firing end your career?
Best to work 6am to noon rather than afternoon.
The sun intensity is worse than the heat, imo.
Seems like a great startup idea for preventing heat injuries at work sites.
For a while I worked weekends at the race track, all of the drunk people would drop like flies if it went over 100F. The pavement temperature was 150F+. It was like standing on a griddle. You could feel the radiated heat trying to cook your skin.
Garmin, what possessed you to make a *black* temperature sensor? And provide no proper sun shield for it? (Although I'm not sure how effective a sun shield would be. I've got a thermometer in the back yard that is inside a manufacturer's sun shield--vented white plastic--and it still can report 15 degrees above actual even though it's under a tree.)
Even putting it something like an inch deep in my pack has produced readings of 90+ when hiking away from the sun for an extended period.
If you want your Garmin to take a valid measurement, place it on a string, 5 feet from the ground, in a shaded area for 5-10 minutes.
But a company does not care if a blue collar worker keels over on the job if they aren't forced to care by the government. Simple as.
My thought is to prevent death. There are circumstances under which no matter what procedures you use, heat stroke happens anyways. People with heart disease, diabetes, obesity, or even just a winter on the couch can contract heat stroke where everyone else is fine. Alcoholics tend to be the worst off.
Heck, I kind of want something like this for mowing my lawn some days.
Those two solutions are:
- Low humidity days: Hyper-adsorbent textiles that you "fill up" with water and they evaporate over time, lowering the apparent temperature.
- High humidity days: Two enormous chest freezers full of special phase-change "ice" packs. Due to some inherent properties of the universe (thermodynamics) it's best if the phase change happens around 50-60 degrees F or so, instead of at freezing. So it's not pure water. One chest freezer is for "frozen" packs. Workers take the packs from these and load them into pockets in special vests. Then after 30 minutes or so you remove them and put them in the other chest for "used" packs and reload yours with fresh ones. Then after lunch break the used packs from the morning should be frozen again.
These techniques increase the amount of time someone can safely work outside by about 15 minutes per hour. Chemical plants in Louisiana are generally quite good at limiting the time that contractors and direct employees spend working outside on hot days. If the limit for today's temperature is "45 minutes per hour", then ice packs can extend that to continuous work. If the limit is "15 minutes per hour" then with ice packs workers could work 30 minutes per hour, but would have to be indoors in A/C for the other 30 minutes.
Working 15 minutes every hour is very inefficient, but it's moral, humane, and in the long run calculated to be cheaper than the lost time of large teams being derailed by depositions in a wrongful death lawsuit and less productive teams for months until that's all resolved.
Often instead of having workers work 15 minutes per hour, we'd just reschedule them for 1-2 weeks later when it's a bit cooler again.
That makes a lot of sense. My wife used to work for a lawn service company and when it was predicted to be above a certain temperature, they'd just start a couple hours earlier in the day to avoid most of the heat.