This commentary could be, but isn’t about abortion. Since the Supreme Court majority chose to rip away a previously guaranteed right by axing the 50-year-old Roe v. Wade decision, we’ve seen women facing potentially lethal complications from their pregnancies have to go to great lengths, including leaving their home state, to obtain an abortion. Pregnant women on the verge of sepsis are told to wait until it gets really bad before physicians fearful of legal complications will perform the procedure. Raped pre-teens are told having a baby is the best outcome for them. The horror stories are plentiful. And totally predicted. Eight-cell embryo lives matter but women’s lives are clearly less precious to these forced-birther control freaks.
That, however, is not what is rankling me at the moment. Rather it’s the fact that Florida and Texas are making clear they don’t give two hoots about the health or lives of workers. In this particular case, it’s outdoor workers who are at risk because of killer heat waves that scientists say are going to get worse because of climate change. To deal with this, although in the most modest way imaginable, some cities have mandated water and shade breaks for outdoor workers and others are pondering doing the same, among them Miami-Dade County in Florida.
But on Friday, the Florida state legislature, firmly in Republican hands, chose to pass CS/CS/HB 433. a bill that bars any of the state’s cities or counties from passing laws to shield outdoor workers from extreme heat. Such measures typically include mandating the availability of drinking water, cooling measures like shade, and recovery periods. They also sometimes include requiring employers to provide of information to workers that shows them other means of protecting themselves from extreme heat.
Although nationwide standards are being crafted by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, that could take years and then potentially years of litigation. Until then, there are no federal standards, so protections vary widely from state to state. The Guardian reports:
Efforts to ensure potentially life-saving water breaks, rest and shade for construction and agriculture workers have failed largely due to industry pressure, a growing trend across south-western states, where heat related deaths are on the rise. [...]
The newly passed [Florida] legislation will affect roughly 2 million outdoor workers across the state and render existing local protections “void and prohibited” from 1 July.
“This legislation is cruel,” said Oscar Londoño, executive director of worker advocacy WeCount!, which has been pushing for a Miami-Dade heat ordinance. “It’s a bad faith attempt to keep labor conditions very low for some of the most vulnerable workers.”
Last summer, after Austin and Dallas mandated rest breaks in the construction industry, Texas passed HB 2127, a bill critics labeled the “Death Star Law.” Like Florida’s bill, it prohibits local governments from passing their own safety mandates. Although a Texas county judge ruled the state law to be unconstitutional, it went into effect Sept. 1, 2023.
So neither Texas nor Florida have state standards and they don’t want local jurisdictions to take up the slack because that would be messy. Dead workers being easier to clean up apparently than is the damage to campaign coffers from pissed-off employers. For the record, California doesn’t have to worry about local jurisdictions stepping in with their own proposals because, while not perfect, statewide efforts on heat-related protections are strong.
Juley Fulcher, worker health and safety advocate with Public Citizen, issued the following statement regarding the Florida legislation:
The punitive cruelty of denying workers access to water and protection from heat in one of the hottest states in the country is sinister and monstrous. Each year, hundreds of workers across the U.S. die excruciating deaths from heat. Not only does this bill rob workers of simple water breaks, it forbids the posting of educational materials to protect themselves from the heat.
The vicious inhumanity at the heart of this legislation will cost the lives of and impose needless suffering on workers – especially workers of color and immigrant workers, who make up a disproportionate share of agricultural and construction workers – across the state. Governor Ron DeSantis should veto this legislation.
With Florida joining Texas in preempting even the most minor workplace protections for excessive heat exposure, it’s past time for the federal government to step up. With what’s likely to be the hottest summer of our lives approaching, Congress should passing the Asuncíon Valdivia Heat Illness, Injury and Fatality Prevention Act, which would direct the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to adopt interim heat standards right now, while the agency continues its years-long slog of adopting a final heat protection rule.
Advocates of the Florida bill argue that the piecemeal approach to heat protections creates a hardship for employers with business operations that span more than one jurisdiction. They don’t mention that it’s also more efficient to lobby state officials or capture state regulatory bodies than having to do that in multiple locales.
Republican Rep.Tiffany Esposito, who sponsored the bill, said that it requires the Department of Commerce to enact regulations related to heat exposure for workers by 2028 if the Occupational Safety and Health Administration doesn’t release them at the federal level. “Employers have a vested interest in taking care of their employees and we see that through the actions that they take,” she said. “That doesn’t mean that the city or county should mandate it,” she said, totally ignoring the fact that employers around the country have fought against heat wave ordinances and similar state bills rather than “taking care of their employees.”
Miami Democratic Rep. Ashley Gantt said, “Private companies do not have an unmitigated right to do business with the government. So, the notion of free market doesn’t hold muster when we are talking about people being able to afford to pay their rent, pay their mortgage or even provide food or groceries for their families.”
These local laws are designed to protect the health and lives of outdoor workers, many of whom are among the nation’s most vulnerable. Stomping on such bills Iin the absence of state or federal protections that are years away from being implemented at a time when every year is hotter than the previous one means consigning countless workers—human beings—to permanent bad health effects and, yes, killing them.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we lived in a world where the “free market” would, à la Rep. Esposito, take care of such matters as worker protection without government having to step in? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Republicans so proud of displaying their pro-life badges actually applied that sentiment to already born people who work in the heat to feed their already born kids?
As the Florida and Texas legislators have proved once again, “pro-life” for them is just a phony, hollow, hypocritical but convenient slogan, whether applied to women with lethal pregnancies or workers dying on the job.