This would be interesting to see how it plays out and if the market solves this on its own.
While a regulation and mandates usually requires an employer to keep extra records, cause confusion for a lot of smaller companies trying to comply based on each different governments rules, as well as generate more government costs to enforce, the Texas heat is nothing to mess with just as in many states in the south.
I would think an employer who has crews working in the heat would want their crews to be rested and hydrated. Someone handing heavy machinery and passes out, or god forbid, dies on a job would crush that company and cause hell on the general costs of insurance. Also with the number of construction companies, ones that basically tell their staff they can’t drink water I would have to believe quickly will find no one will want to work for.
At this point the argument “the market will solve the problem by its own” is tiring. The whole argument that if a company doesn’t offer X, then people won’t work for it and go to other companies only works when there are others that offer it and don’t cut on Y and Z because they offer X.
There are countless labor issues that historically “weren’t solved by the market” because they were the right thing to do until a law was established.
If we let things solved by the markets with no laws, all of labor will be replaced by children smoking cigarettes who don’t get paid.
I've been asking: When the things that happen in a healthy free market aren't happening, what does that mean? (Maybe too abstract because I haven't got an answer from those I ask.)
Maybe another symptom of a broken immigration system? People with tenuous immigration status are easily exploited?
More generally, I think the specific question is: if a worker is choosing between two companies, one which offers water breaks and one which doesn't, wouldn't they choose the first? This makes sense in a case of labor demand >> labor supply.
An alternative question is: if companies face a cost for worker injury, why wouldn't they take better care of workers. But there's huge amounts of evidence (including my wife's as a resident at Ben Taub) that injured workers are discarded into the public health system (with no insurance). And by "discarded" I also mean "lose their job" as well.
Finally, the cities largely bear these costs with only local property and sales taxes to support them, but have found ways to get around barriers erected by undemocratic rural and suburban legislators, and no doubt will continue to.
Depending on this scenario, it could mean the free market doesn't actually have anything at all to do with certain policies or actions. If something goes right people are right on top of claiming it is a win for free markets, but how often is it really the free market at work and not other factors and incentives, be it political, cultural, historical, situational, emotional, or just a local quirk?
True. My full frustration behind this question is that some people oppose regulation saying that the free market will solve the problem, then later when the free market has not solved the problem I ask my question, then they say that it's not something the free market can solve or we just have to wait longer for the solution to arrive (meanwhile, people are suffering or dying). There is a balance to be found here, free markets have their merits, but I do hate to see ideas dismissed because of a hand-wavy claim that the market will fix it.
(A) there is no singular market. Each city, job, bidding process, and work crew is subject to their own specific market forces and expecting all to behave in an idealized way is silly.
(B) Your assumptions about what happens in a healthy free market are incorrect.
> ones that basically tell their staff they can’t drink water I would have to believe quickly will find no one will want to work for
I've never done something as difficult as construction, but I was a cashier, sanding still on concrete all day for 8 hours, no fun. I don't think anyone wanted to do that, but there they were doing it anyway. And there they still are every time I go to the store, no stool to sit on, standing still on concrete.
Your belief seems to be that if people don't want to do a thing, they wont, but that doesn't seem to be true when I look around.
There are very very few jobs that people actually want to do - and some places do provide stools. Aldi’s does and they’re notoriously famous for overworking their cashiers as much as they can.
I’d expect to see stools at union grocery stories (but I don’t) so it must not be that big of a complaint.
I have seen that almost all now have those padded floor things.
Aldi probably does this because all grocery cashiers in Germany (home of Aldi) have seats at their registers, and are sitting most of the time. Aldi here also makes them do all sorts of jobs around the store when their registers aren’t needed, so I guess being able to sit at the register is a legal requirement.
The ArbStättV (basically German "rules for places where people work") says in Anhang 3.3 (2):
> (2) Kann die Arbeit ganz oder teilweise sitzend verrichtet werden oder lässt es der Arbeitsablauf zu, sich zeitweise zu setzen, sind den Beschäftigten am Arbeitsplatz Sitzgelegenheiten zur Verfügung zu stellen. Können aus betriebstechnischen Gründen keine Sitzgelegenheiten unmittelbar am Arbeitsplatz aufgestellt werden, obwohl es der Arbeitsablauf zulässt, sich zeitweise zu setzen, müssen den Beschäftigten in der Nähe der Arbeitsplätze Sitzgelegenheiten bereitgestellt werden.
Roughly translated:
> If the work can be done fully or partially while sitting or if the workflow allows intermittent seating, the worker has to have a place to sit at their place of work. If due to work circumstances no seating can be set up directly at the place of work, even though the workflow itself allows for intermittent seating, the worker has to have a place to sit close to his place of work.
I agree, as you say, there are very few jobs people want to do, but they do them anyways. Thus, people will probably continue to work for employers that deny them water breaks. The question is whether we collectively want workers to be treated that way in our society.
You act as if this is a brave new experiment in deregulation but this is how it already is in many places. Dozens of workers have died from heat stroke in the past few years in Texas while working construction and many cities do not have water break rules (its just those to chose to enact them that are having those laws overturned). It is widely believed that the actual amount of people who die is much higher but due to the insurance reasons you mention those deaths are often categorized as not being related to worker mistreatment. Worth pointing out the people running crews are pretty far removed from their company’s insurance policies so your idea that’s on their mind when deciding whether or not to enforce water breaks seems shaky to me.
I've seen landscapers working outside at a time when the air quality was >300 AQI. The employer required their workers to show up that day and provided no protective equipment, and the customers couldn't reschedule without forfeiting a large down payment.
Really this case is a "don't whizz on the electric fence" law. That is the law isn't for anybody rational and remotely intelligent. We know that most people don't whizz on electric fences, but the preventable damage done by those stupid enough to do it without the law is a certainty, and having the law makes things smoother. The question "Did they offer the required water breaks." is easier to answer than "Were they negligent?" even if they are synonymous in this case.
My decades of working in very capitalistic companies has taught me two things:
1. Emotions are bigger factor than logic when it comes to business decisions.
2. We often assume wrong on what a “rational” economic choice should be. We believe it would be constructive, but economically beneficial choice for an individual often does not align with the constructive choice.
I think you’re vastly underestimating how petty and controlling lower management can be to workers who are much closer to minimum wage.
Go search https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/ for “bathroom” and you’ll find plenty of examples of low wage workers being limited in how long and how often they are allow to relieve themselves.
Does that hold for everyone in your area? Or is it okay for you if other people aren't allowed to take a bathroom break when they want as long as you are allowed to?
Please observe a construction site in Houston (I just drove by some roofers a few minutes ago). There are breaks, but they are much rarer than a "normal" person might expect.
that's scary. thanks for the data point (not joking) because here north of Phoenix it's hot as hell too, yet less hot than at lower elevation like the valley Phoenix is in, so it would be nuts to not respect the climate.
While a regulation and mandates usually requires an employer to keep extra records, cause confusion for a lot of smaller companies trying to comply based on each different governments rules, as well as generate more government costs to enforce, the Texas heat is nothing to mess with just as in many states in the south.
I would think an employer who has crews working in the heat would want their crews to be rested and hydrated. Someone handing heavy machinery and passes out, or god forbid, dies on a job would crush that company and cause hell on the general costs of insurance. Also with the number of construction companies, ones that basically tell their staff they can’t drink water I would have to believe quickly will find no one will want to work for.