House Bill 2127, which takes effect on Sept. 1, will do away with local rules that require water breaks for construction workers. The cities of Austin and Dallas, for example, require 10-minute breaks every four hours. San Antonio officials had been considering a similar ordinance.
“We are human beings who need respect,” Martínez said. “We really need to be allowed to work without problems, without any barriers … Believe me, we are dying inside those buildings when they take away our water and our [break] time.”
Every large company will squeeze every second of productivity out of a worker unless it’s forced not to.
The 8 hour work day was fought for by workers, the 5 day work week was fought for by workers, child labor laws were fought for by workers. These things required protests and often time violence to get, because companies were literally killing people through work until these things became labor law.
Removing labor protection does nothing but remove safety for workers and increase profits for corporations.
The free market doesn’t work and has never worked. Anyone who says otherwise is willfully ignorant of history and basic logical reasoning.
I get that, and I support everything you’re saying. It feels like the workers are getting played by the companies though. Workers should be lobbying for rights to the state, federal and municipal levels, but this feels like a “red herring” of a bill to get behind.
We’re talking about a Texas state law that repeals existing protections for workers.
The workers are protesting for a law that protects them. Removing this law will give them back the protections they had before.