4 ms·

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’

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.
- tzs 3y ago
  > 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. That was covered in the article: --begin quote-- David Michaels, who was head of OSHA from 2009 to 2017, disagreed with the approach of HB 2127 proponents. “Under OSHA law, it is employers who are responsible to make sure workers are safe,” said Michaels, now a professor at the George Washington University School of Public Health. “And we have compelling evidence that they are doing a very poor job because many workers are injured on the job, especially in Texas.” Michaels pointed out that OSHA does not have a national standard for heat-related illnesses and issues citations only for over-exposure to heat after an injury or death, but not before that occurs. “The better solution would be to have a national standard, but since we do not, local ordinances are very important for saving lives,” he said. “Prohibiting these local laws will result in workers being severely hurt or killed.” --end quote-- > 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) I don't see how that would realistically be a problem, at least with the laws in Dallas and Austin. Their laws are 10 minute breaks every four hours. It's hard for that to ever be overkill. If there is some fear that some cities might go farther and actually require so many breaks that it does non-trivially impact then it might be reasonable for the state to step in--but the sane way for the state to step in would be to make 10 minutes every four hours a state law.
  - fwlr 3y ago
    Realistically, no, it wouldn’t be a problem for this case. I was charitably trying to come up with the strongest possible argument for the repeal bill. I think it’s a decent argument in the general case - it’s not hard to see how hard-and-fast rules made by politicians serving the two masters of worker safety and popular vote could stack up to cause death by a thousand cuts. Especially if trying to repeal any of those laws gets you / your party mercilessly dunked on for wanting to kill and maim workers, as is happening in this case and would doubtless happen in any other case as well. That’s a recipe for a one-way ratchet. (Again I want to stress that I don’t think the actual motivation for the repeal is pure of heart.) I don’t know what to make of the former head of OSHA’s statements. Obviously his prior position gives him impeccable integrity but the things he’s quoted as saying just don’t make any sense. Like, OSHA absolutely does have national standards for heat-related illnesses, this is trivially verifiable, googling “OSHA heat” turns up dozens and dozens of info pages, safety posters, etc. on the matter. The only way I can make sense of his statement is by assuming there is some technicality regarding what counts as a “national standard”, or perhaps “heat-related illness” is a newly introduced category that is parallel to “heat exposure”, such that OSHA has plenty of regulations on heat exposure but none on heat-related illnesses. But that is deliberate deception, why would the former head of OSHA be deliberately deceptive about OSHA? Maybe this is one small comment mined out of a much larger conversation and the journalist is to blame? Something just doesn’t seem right about any of this, so I am going to remain skeptical of the surface-level narrative that local ordinances are reasonable and this bill is trying to screw over or even kill workers in order to save businesses some money. (Please, once again, note I am also continuing to remain skeptical of the motivations of the repeal bill as well!)

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.

tzs 3y ago
> 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. That was covered in the article: --begin quote-- David Michaels, who was head of OSHA from 2009 to 2017, disagreed with the approach of HB 2127 proponents. “Under OSHA law, it is employers who are responsible to make sure workers are safe,” said Michaels, now a professor at the George Washington University School of Public Health. “And we have compelling evidence that they are doing a very poor job because many workers are injured on the job, especially in Texas.” Michaels pointed out that OSHA does not have a national standard for heat-related illnesses and issues citations only for over-exposure to heat after an injury or death, but not before that occurs. “The better solution would be to have a national standard, but since we do not, local ordinances are very important for saving lives,” he said. “Prohibiting these local laws will result in workers being severely hurt or killed.” --end quote-- > 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) I don't see how that would realistically be a problem, at least with the laws in Dallas and Austin. Their laws are 10 minute breaks every four hours. It's hard for that to ever be overkill. If there is some fear that some cities might go farther and actually require so many breaks that it does non-trivially impact then it might be reasonable for the state to step in--but the sane way for the state to step in would be to make 10 minutes every four hours a state law.
- fwlr 3y ago
  Realistically, no, it wouldn’t be a problem for this case. I was charitably trying to come up with the strongest possible argument for the repeal bill. I think it’s a decent argument in the general case - it’s not hard to see how hard-and-fast rules made by politicians serving the two masters of worker safety and popular vote could stack up to cause death by a thousand cuts. Especially if trying to repeal any of those laws gets you / your party mercilessly dunked on for wanting to kill and maim workers, as is happening in this case and would doubtless happen in any other case as well. That’s a recipe for a one-way ratchet. (Again I want to stress that I don’t think the actual motivation for the repeal is pure of heart.) I don’t know what to make of the former head of OSHA’s statements. Obviously his prior position gives him impeccable integrity but the things he’s quoted as saying just don’t make any sense. Like, OSHA absolutely does have national standards for heat-related illnesses, this is trivially verifiable, googling “OSHA heat” turns up dozens and dozens of info pages, safety posters, etc. on the matter. The only way I can make sense of his statement is by assuming there is some technicality regarding what counts as a “national standard”, or perhaps “heat-related illness” is a newly introduced category that is parallel to “heat exposure”, such that OSHA has plenty of regulations on heat exposure but none on heat-related illnesses. But that is deliberate deception, why would the former head of OSHA be deliberately deceptive about OSHA? Maybe this is one small comment mined out of a much larger conversation and the journalist is to blame? Something just doesn’t seem right about any of this, so I am going to remain skeptical of the surface-level narrative that local ordinances are reasonable and this bill is trying to screw over or even kill workers in order to save businesses some money. (Please, once again, note I am also continuing to remain skeptical of the motivations of the repeal bill as well!)