You would think in the year 2023, we would all agree that a little bit of shade and water is a basic human right when it is 46.1°C outside. Texas seems to think otherwise.
Even as the state this month suffered through record heat that shows no sign of relenting, Texas Governor Greg Abbott this week signed a law rescinding a requirement that employers offer outdoor workers breaks for water and shade. The measure overrides long-standing laws in Austin and Dallas that provide outdoor workers breaks every four hours.
Apparently, these life-saving city ordinances were too much for local businesses.
“For too long, progressive municipal officials and agencies have made Texas small businesses jump through contradictory and confusing hoops when it comes to the current hodgepodge of onerous and burdensome regulations,” one of the bill’s Republican sponsors said in explaining its rationale.
Whatever the motivation, even in normal Texas summers, which are infamously hot and humid, taking away water and shade would be an egregious abuse of human rights. More than 53 workers have died from heat in Texas since 2010, according to a study by NPR and Columbia Journalism Investigations. The hotter the planet gets because of climate change, the more dangerously hot Texas will get. Summer had not even begun this year before temperatures rose to triple digits and stayed there.
In fact, Texas would be the US state most affected by continued warming, according to a recent First Street analysis. Fifteen Texas counties are likely to spend 90 or more days above 100°F (37.8°C) this year, according to First Street. By 2053, these counties could spend more than a third of the year in such miserable conditions.
One might assume, or at least hope, that employers in Texas appreciate the value of keeping their workers alive and out of the hospital and would not need to be told to keep them as hydrated and cool as possible. And maybe workers will band together to fight for their rights.
However, many of the laborers this new law will affect are migrants, who might feel easily replaceable and without recourse. Many of them also lack sick days and health coverage. Hispanics made up about a third of all US worker heat deaths since 2010, according to the NPR/Columbia study. For low-wage workers, hope is not a plan.
The president of the League of United Latin American Citizens National, an advocacy group, called the new Texas law a “barbaric and deliberate act of playing politics with lives, denying even the simplest measure of compassion to another living soul.” Sounds about right.
Outnumbered Democratic lawmakers in Texas have repeatedly failed to overcome Republican resistance to turning break requirements into state law.
However, they should not have to go it alone. After an outcry from state attorneys general, President Joe Biden in 2021 ordered the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to come up with an emergency plan to protect workers from heat.
However, OSHA takes seven years, on average, to write and approve such rules, the Government Accountability Office has estimated. Workers simply do not have that kind of time. Texas lawmakers might be reluctant to admit climate change exists, but they should at least repeal this cruel law before it takes effect on Sept. 1. If the state will not act, then the Biden administration must move with much more urgency to impose national standards. Lives are at stake.
Mark Gongloff is a Bloomberg Opinion editor and columnist covering climate change. A former managing editor of Fortune.com, he ran the HuffPost’s business and technology coverage and was a reporter and editor for the Wall Street Journal.
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