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Those mandatory water break laws confuse me. Is it because businesses are refusing to let their workers take water breaks? Or because workers don’t realize when

by fwlr 3y ago

Those mandatory water break laws confuse me. Is it because businesses are refusing to let their workers take water breaks? Or because workers don’t realize when they need a water break? I find it hard to believe either of those things are generally true*. *: Perhaps there are some outliers - businesses that genuinely slavedrive their workers, or workers that genuinely can’t tell when they’re about to die. But are those businesses or workers likely to pay much attention to these laws anyway?

rightbyte 3y ago
In my experience many safety rules are there to force workers to do stuff they don't want to do. Like wear helmets or whatever. Management has to be quite bad before they are the weak link.
- avgcorrection 3y ago
  And this applies to drinking water?
  - rightbyte 3y ago
    Yes. I assume the workers are able to drink any time they want? "The law will nullify ordinances enacted by Austin in 2010 and Dallas in 2015 that established 10-minute breaks every four hours so that construction workers can drink water and protect themselves from the sun." Like, every 4th hour? You need to drink maybe every 15th minute if it is hot and you work with your body. I smell a forced water break to ensure people drink water. But I should be clear that I have no knowledge of Texas construction work conditions.
    - throw0101a 3y ago
      > Yes. I assume the workers are able to drink any time they want? What about on the other end (i.e., peeing)? "14-hour days and no bathroom breaks: Amazon's overworked delivery drivers": * https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/mar/11/amazon-delivery-drivers-bathroom-breaks-unions https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/mar/11/amazon-de... "Amazon strikes: Workers claim their toilet breaks are timed": * https://www.bbc.com/news/business-64384287 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-64384287 I wouldn't put it past some employers preventing water intake if water 'outtake' is a documented problem.
      - rightbyte 3y ago
        Ye well if you can't go pee at will a mandated brake every 4 hours won't save you underwear. I believe "reasonable breaks" is a worker community and employer problem rather than a government one. It depends so much on the situation that general rules get worthless. But I am all for a loose enough "right to pee and drink" law if it is a practical problem at some employers.
        Timon3 3y ago
        > Ye well if you can't go pee at will a mandated brake every 4 hours won't save you underwear What? Of course it will. If I have the option to go pee every 4 hours it's a heck of a lot better for me and my underwear than if I only have the option every 10 hours.
        rightbyte 3y ago
        I need to pee way more often if it is hot and do phyisical work and I am sweating and I drink enough. Like every hour or 2nd hour. Also you need like 10 min break to the hour. My point I am trying to make is that construction work with "minimum break" in a sunny Texas can't be functional at all. There has to be more breaks?
        Timon3 3y ago
        But there aren't. Business owners would make less money if people had fewer breaks, so people have to work in sweltering heat and only pee every 4 hours. That's our reality. And the sad part is: if there were no rules for 4 hours, people wouldn't be allowed to pee every 4 hours.
        avgcorrection 3y ago
        > Ye well if you can't go pee at will a mandated brake every 4 hours won't save you underwear. So to sum up. - Demanding a water break every four hours is useless because you need to drink every 15 minutes in this context - Demanding a pee break every four hours is useless because… everyone has tiny bladders, I guess? This little pitiful rule is not better than having to go whole shifts without being able to pee? I guess mandated lunch breaks are useless as well since you need to eat every hour at least under such strenuous conditions. Bah. > But I am all for a loose enough "right to pee and drink" law if it is a practical problem at some employers. It certainly must be “loose enough”. Thou shalt never inconvenience corporate management.
Timon3 3y ago
If there are no businesses that don't let their workers take water breaks, these rules wouldn't change anything. If there is a single business that doesn't let their workers take water breaks, the rules are necessary. There is no reason to remove them.
- fwlr 3y ago
  Sure, I have no opinion on removing the laws, I was just confused about their origin.
freeone3000 3y ago
If people do not pay attention to laws requiring workers to take water breaks, we use state-backed violence until they do.
mustacheemperor 3y ago
Folks on site often just want to get the job done and can view stuff like regular breaks for water as an obstacle if they feel they don’t need it, whether that’s an individual working through their break or a crew chief who grumbles about people setting tools down for it. Unfortunately people aren’t very good judges of when they need a break for water working in hot conditions. Cal-OSHA has an entire additional training module on heat related illness because it’s such a risk to workers on site. Making it a requirement helps everyone gets the breaks they need and reduces the rate of heat related injury and death on site, that’s it.
- fwlr 3y ago
  I can see the wisdom in that, certainly. It does seem like it’s an OSHA issue so I’m not sure why these laws were passed directly by local government instead of being enforced by OSHA, but I can imagine good reasons - maybe OSHA does not have the power to mandate the specific things needed to make this situation safer (although in the case of “breaks and water” it seems like they probably would?) I’ve worked in heavily OSHA-regulated industries (complete with “random unannounced safety inspections”, including being interviewed by OSHA). At least in my experience in Australia, OSHA was pretty good about enforcing the more effective and less onerous safety measures (that neither us nor our boss cared much about, but objectively did benefit from, so OSHA did good work there), and not enforcing the less effective and more onerous safety measures (some of which were frankly ridiculous, like requiring three points of contact at all times when climbing a staircase to a tool storage shed - it is quite difficult to carry anything up stairs when you have to have both hands on the railings whenever you lift a foot!) Perhaps that is the best argument for removing these laws. OSHA has a lot of expertise in managing the balance of safety and productivity, so they should be the ones in charge of deciding on how often and how mandatory heat breaks should be. These laws made by non-OSHA bodies are perhaps too rigid: they could simultaneously be overkill for some situations (like indoor installations) while being wholly insufficient for other situations (like road repair) - and yet the workers, the employees, and the safety inspectors all working together in the goal of safety are unable to adapt them to the situation because it rests with uninvolved (and potentially even uninformed) lawmakers instead. I’d note that from reading the article it doesn’t seem like this is the major motivation behind the attempt to repeal these laws, although something like this is marshaled as an argument. edit to add: apparently OSHA standards already limit work in 104F conditions to a maximum of 20 minutes per hour and unlimited cool-down breaks whenever the worker requests it, which is far more generous than these water break laws. There is some suggestion that in fact the real purpose of these water break laws were to give companies a way to circumvent the more restrictive OSHA requirements. Things may be much more complicated than they first appeared.

by fwlr 3y ago

rightbyte 3y ago

In my experience many safety rules are there to force workers to do stuff they don't want to do. Like wear helmets or whatever. Management has to be quite bad before they are the weak link.

avgcorrection 3y ago
And this applies to drinking water?
- rightbyte 3y ago
  Yes. I assume the workers are able to drink any time they want? "The law will nullify ordinances enacted by Austin in 2010 and Dallas in 2015 that established 10-minute breaks every four hours so that construction workers can drink water and protect themselves from the sun." Like, every 4th hour? You need to drink maybe every 15th minute if it is hot and you work with your body. I smell a forced water break to ensure people drink water. But I should be clear that I have no knowledge of Texas construction work conditions.
  - throw0101a 3y ago
    > Yes. I assume the workers are able to drink any time they want? What about on the other end (i.e., peeing)? "14-hour days and no bathroom breaks: Amazon's overworked delivery drivers": * https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/mar/11/amazon-delivery-drivers-bathroom-breaks-unions https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/mar/11/amazon-de... "Amazon strikes: Workers claim their toilet breaks are timed": * https://www.bbc.com/news/business-64384287 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-64384287 I wouldn't put it past some employers preventing water intake if water 'outtake' is a documented problem.
    - rightbyte 3y ago
      Ye well if you can't go pee at will a mandated brake every 4 hours won't save you underwear. I believe "reasonable breaks" is a worker community and employer problem rather than a government one. It depends so much on the situation that general rules get worthless. But I am all for a loose enough "right to pee and drink" law if it is a practical problem at some employers.
      - Timon3 3y ago
        > Ye well if you can't go pee at will a mandated brake every 4 hours won't save you underwear What? Of course it will. If I have the option to go pee every 4 hours it's a heck of a lot better for me and my underwear than if I only have the option every 10 hours.
        rightbyte 3y ago
        I need to pee way more often if it is hot and do phyisical work and I am sweating and I drink enough. Like every hour or 2nd hour. Also you need like 10 min break to the hour. My point I am trying to make is that construction work with "minimum break" in a sunny Texas can't be functional at all. There has to be more breaks?
        Timon3 3y ago
        But there aren't. Business owners would make less money if people had fewer breaks, so people have to work in sweltering heat and only pee every 4 hours. That's our reality. And the sad part is: if there were no rules for 4 hours, people wouldn't be allowed to pee every 4 hours.
      - avgcorrection 3y ago
        > Ye well if you can't go pee at will a mandated brake every 4 hours won't save you underwear. So to sum up. - Demanding a water break every four hours is useless because you need to drink every 15 minutes in this context - Demanding a pee break every four hours is useless because… everyone has tiny bladders, I guess? This little pitiful rule is not better than having to go whole shifts without being able to pee? I guess mandated lunch breaks are useless as well since you need to eat every hour at least under such strenuous conditions. Bah. > But I am all for a loose enough "right to pee and drink" law if it is a practical problem at some employers. It certainly must be “loose enough”. Thou shalt never inconvenience corporate management.

Timon3 3y ago

If there are no businesses that don't let their workers take water breaks, these rules wouldn't change anything. If there is a single business that doesn't let their workers take water breaks, the rules are necessary. There is no reason to remove them.

fwlr 3y ago
Sure, I have no opinion on removing the laws, I was just confused about their origin.

freeone3000 3y ago

If people do not pay attention to laws requiring workers to take water breaks, we use state-backed violence until they do.

mustacheemperor 3y ago

Folks on site often just want to get the job done and can view stuff like regular breaks for water as an obstacle if they feel they don’t need it, whether that’s an individual working through their break or a crew chief who grumbles about people setting tools down for it. Unfortunately people aren’t very good judges of when they need a break for water working in hot conditions. Cal-OSHA has an entire additional training module on heat related illness because it’s such a risk to workers on site. Making it a requirement helps everyone gets the breaks they need and reduces the rate of heat related injury and death on site, that’s it.

fwlr 3y ago
I can see the wisdom in that, certainly. It does seem like it’s an OSHA issue so I’m not sure why these laws were passed directly by local government instead of being enforced by OSHA, but I can imagine good reasons - maybe OSHA does not have the power to mandate the specific things needed to make this situation safer (although in the case of “breaks and water” it seems like they probably would?) I’ve worked in heavily OSHA-regulated industries (complete with “random unannounced safety inspections”, including being interviewed by OSHA). At least in my experience in Australia, OSHA was pretty good about enforcing the more effective and less onerous safety measures (that neither us nor our boss cared much about, but objectively did benefit from, so OSHA did good work there), and not enforcing the less effective and more onerous safety measures (some of which were frankly ridiculous, like requiring three points of contact at all times when climbing a staircase to a tool storage shed - it is quite difficult to carry anything up stairs when you have to have both hands on the railings whenever you lift a foot!) Perhaps that is the best argument for removing these laws. OSHA has a lot of expertise in managing the balance of safety and productivity, so they should be the ones in charge of deciding on how often and how mandatory heat breaks should be. These laws made by non-OSHA bodies are perhaps too rigid: they could simultaneously be overkill for some situations (like indoor installations) while being wholly insufficient for other situations (like road repair) - and yet the workers, the employees, and the safety inspectors all working together in the goal of safety are unable to adapt them to the situation because it rests with uninvolved (and potentially even uninformed) lawmakers instead. I’d note that from reading the article it doesn’t seem like this is the major motivation behind the attempt to repeal these laws, although something like this is marshaled as an argument. edit to add: apparently OSHA standards already limit work in 104F conditions to a maximum of 20 minutes per hour and unlimited cool-down breaks whenever the worker requests it, which is far more generous than these water break laws. There is some suggestion that in fact the real purpose of these water break laws were to give companies a way to circumvent the more restrictive OSHA requirements. Things may be much more complicated than they first appeared.