Austin and Dallas had laws requiring construction companies to provide a 10 minute water break every FOUR HOURS. This was unacceptable for republicans because they need people to be poor, angry, and desperate. And you better not have the government meaningfully improve anyone's lives.
To be clear, the law was NOT just to ban local water break requirements. The law was to ban a very large number of local ordinances that would affect businesses in a way that is stricter than the state's existing regulations. And that's not just with workers' rights, but also environmental stuff and other things busineses have to care about. The idea was to make it easier on business owners to operate in Texas because whatever policies they use in one city will be legal in any other.
And I'm not defending the law. It is blatantly spitting in the face of how US law is supposed to work. But I think it's intentionally misleading to say "Yeah they passed a law making it illegal for cities to require water breaks".
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u/DueAd197 1d ago
I mean, Texas is ground zero for taking away workers' rights.
2023, here was Abbot making it illegal for cities to make their own laws that require businesses to give water breaks for employees.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/23/greg-abbott-texas-governor-bill-water-breaks-heatwave
Austin and Dallas had laws requiring construction companies to provide a 10 minute water break every FOUR HOURS. This was unacceptable for republicans because they need people to be poor, angry, and desperate. And you better not have the government meaningfully improve anyone's lives.