Associated Press Fact Checks Claims That Texas Ended Water Breaks For Construction Workers
The facts are more complicated than the news' narrative leads one to believe.
To read the headlines over the summer, one would tend to believe that Governor Greg Abbot and the Texas state legislature want construction workers to die by taking away water breaks.
‘Texas governor signs bill rescinding water breaks as deadly heat grips state’ claimed The Guardian.
Other headlines echoed The Guardian’s claim. For example, NBC News published a story entitled ‘Backlash brews against Texas law that eliminates mandatory water breaks.’
Below is just a sample of headlines from June and July.
In its story, NBC News claimed that House Bill 2127, ”which goes into effect in September, strips construction workers in Austin and Dallas of the right to water breaks every four hours and time to rest in the shade while on the job.”
“Construction is a deadly industry. Whatever the minimum protection is, it can save a life. We are talking about a human right,” Ana Gonzalez, deputy director of policy and politics at the Texas AFL-CIO told the Texas Tribune in June. “We will see more deaths, especially in Texas’ high temperatures.”
However hyperbolic the press has been, an analysis of Texas’ HB 2127 by the Associated Press (AP) “reveals a more complicated picture.”
The law, according to the AP, is more general than water breaks as it “blocks local governments from enforcing legislation clashing with existing state law.”
Proponents say it will help Texas to live up to its pro-business reputation by eliminating red tape created by a slew of ordinances that may differ city-by-city.
….
Democrats, in contrast, have nicknamed the bill the “Death Star” for the breadth of its potential impact on a wide array of ordinances regulating natural resources, agriculture and labor. Houston and San Antonio are suing to block it.
The law's opponents have particularly homed in on the fact it does not expressly mandate water breaks for outside workers. That has struck a chord during a summer when the state and other areas of the U.S. are baking under historically high temperatures.
“The water break narrative is ... especially compelling as Texas experiences a heat wave,” said Mark Jones, of Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.
But, he added, there is no evidence that most employers don’t already provide water breaks, and it’s not clear cities with such regulations even enforce them.
“The narrative that somehow the Republican Legislature is going to prohibit workers from being able to take water breaks is not accurate,” he said. [Emphasis added.]
So, while Texas’ House Bill 2127 does not provide mandates for rest or water breaks, the bill is more wide ranging and does not prohibit water breaks either.
