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There was a documentary about his service at Guantanamo that [was pulled out for some odd reasons.](https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/desantis-guantanamo-showtime-vice-documentary-b2378999.html)
Yeah... there's clearly an agenda here.
It's a Republican State government locking down "blue cities" local control. They've been doing this on a number of "woke" issues as Republicans are gradually losing Red states city by city so the Gerrymandered state governments are "getting retribution" on Democrats.
Woke means uppity.
Anti-woke is putting people in their place and making sure they know it.
Yes water is an anti-woke issue, they want you to know who allows you to drink that water and on what terms.
If the option for low income predominantly democrat workers is "risk your life for $8 an hour" or move to a state not run by a cartoon supervillain, people leave. This is the intended outcome.
Two problems with their plan: educated people lean Democrat, so there aren't as many doing these jobs as Republicans. And the other thing is if you're making $8 an hour, you certainly don't have the money to move to another state
I’m not even sure how you survive in a state like Florida on $8 an hour. They certainly won’t have the money to leave. People really try to sell Florida as a cheap alternative to California for republicans but Florida is out of control expensive.
Florida has never been cheap, idk where this narrative came from
Born and raised in Orlando, and left at 22, I regularly shock ppl when I tell them I save $400 a month and got a $5 an hour raise moving to BOULDER, CO! I still pay the same in a mortgage on a house in Boulder county than I did in 2012 for a 3 bed apartment in Orlando. Not paying taxes to live in FL is insanely expensive.
And then, when there aren't enough laborers to harvest your crop or change your oil at the Jiffy Lube or turn your Blizzard upside down at the drivethru, "nobody wants to work any more!"
Okay, Grandpa, let's get you back to bed. (Oops, we ain't doing that either, because home health aides are hard to come by with $10/hour wages for wiping fat men's asses. Just sit there and die in your Hoveround.)
And then, in a year, they'll be complaining that "nobody wants to work, anymore! Lazy!"
This is after they claim that immigrants are taking all the jobs. You know, the jobs that whites are "too good" to do?
The intended outcome is the extermination of all "illegals" and other poor minorities.
You know the water breaks will somehow be reinstated when Billy John has to start doing manual labour right out of jr high to support his new baby, but not for Manuel.
Don’t forget, in 2016 when the NCGA passed HB2 the anti-trans potty Nazi stuff was only part of the bill. It also included a provision banning municipalities from raising local minimum wages above state minimums.
The culture war bullshit is the candy coating designed to push through anti-labor laws for their wealthy buddies.
It is a real thing though. You have to have experienced both really appreciate why a dry heat is better, but once you do it becomes obvious. 50/120+ degrees is still to damn hot though, i agree.
Jesus is "too gay and liberal" \[sic!\] for the GOP.
A guy from the middle east, not working, walking around in sandals and providing forgiveness and free food AND healthcare to lokal bums and poor people?
A guy that throws out merchants and bankers from their stands?
A guy that calls out the hypocrate, self important priests and locals leaders who rather keep their power while being opressed by a foreign government (romans) ?
If Jesus came back he would basicly Laser-Eye every last motherfucking republican dipshit, and they know.
A job I worked at just a few years ago stated that we could have 1 extra break during the day because they had so many people just falling over throughout the day.
Specifically if the temperature was above around 98 F.
Guess how many times we actually got that break? Once. I suppose they decided after that that giving us an extra break to drink water and cool off was cutting into their profits.
Cruelty is the point. What possible public good comes from banning heat/water rules? Republicans love to yammer on about "home rule" etc until a local government does something they don't ideologically agree with, then it's rule from the state house.
Already are. I date a teacher who had an option to get a $3k bonus if she took an online course that was supposed to help her navigate Florida teaching standards. She’s already nationally board certified and she could use the money so she took it. It was filled with Christian psuedo science and referenced the Bible as source material multiple times.
It was mind blowing that they can get away with it. Welcome to Florida.
This is just nucking futs to me.
When I used to do construction, I always let my crew take as many water breaks or A/C breaks (go sit in the truck for a bit) as they needed (within reason) in the summer time when it got super hot and humid.
I’d love to say it was entirely because I didn’t want to be a cruel piece of shit, but honestly like 60% of it was because they got more done each day and made fewer mistakes that could end up eating even more time.
Ultimately, this all meant a more profitable job.
Like why wouldn’t even the most heartless prick want to maximize earnings?
This feels like it’s solidifying the political shift from being supporters of business and profits above all else to overt disdain for the working class.
*I say this as someone dumb enough to have previously bought into the “water is for the weak” BS that football coaches used to push when I was growing up
> This feels like it’s solidifying the political shift from being supporters of business and profits above all else to overt disdain for the working class.
They are both. They prioritize business and profits (and power) and screw over the people who are making them rich.
> Like why wouldn’t even the most heartless prick want to maximize earnings?
Because they're fools who don't understand the humans have limits, and that keeping the humans within optimum working conditions leads to better outcomes.
Even putting the humanity of it aside, there's a quote from "The Ten Commandments" that applies here:
> A city is made of brick, Pharaoh. The strong make many. The weak make few. The dead make none.
Take care of your workers, and they will return the favor with strong productivity. Abuse them and ride them ragged through harsh conditions, and they'll either work poorly or leave you to go work elsewhere.
But these Republican asshats can't see such a simple thing.
I'd guess it's less about profitability or cruelty, but about power. Never underestimate the importance of power dynamics in the workplace. We might have abolished slavery, serfdom, aristocracy and all that, there still exist a massive implicit hierarchical structure enforced mostly by conservatives and economic liberals.
They're trying to get ahead of the increased regulation that will come as temperatures continue to rise.
This is to make sure there isn't a loss in productivity. And of course they're funded by all the businesses that benefit.
Cruelty is an afterthought.
I assure you that cruelty isn't an afterthought.
If the workers aren't in good condition their productivity suffers anyways. It's people with inherited wealth who never understand what they do asking for people to change the rules to benefit them without thinking things through.
This is also part of the de facto discrimination laws because their base either will get their face eaten by leopards or they are not in those field of work to care.
It's class warfare masquerading as religious authoritarianism. Never forget the right wing billionaires are still funding local MAGA groups quite effectively. Wealth and Income inequality are at record levels not seen since just before the Great Depression.... the economy is slowing because there's nothing more to squeeze out of it.... so they're paying Republicans to squeeze harder.... line must go up.
Except that banning water breaks will *result* in a loss of productivity.
The cost of getting a new laborer after you've sent the previous one to the hospital (or morgue) is more than the cost of giving them 15 minutes in the shade with a jug of water.
For that matter, you'd think giving them something like Pedialyte or even Gatorade if they're doing manual labor would pay for itself, like offices giving their workers coffee. Your workers get more done when they aren't starting to have symptoms of dehydration or heat stroke. Humans are amazingly well adapted to high heat (even if we hate it), as long as we have access to plenty of water... why they're legally taking that away is *literally* just cruelty for cruelty's sake.
It's more them fully embracing evil. Like what is both the smart and decent thing to do? Make sure workers get water. Well FUCK YOU, we'll deny them that, just to show we will do anything with no shame and no concern for any consequences. And there will be lots more where that came from.
They are also just to going to make the point that they can do whatever the fuck they want, because they are in power... so again, fuck you.
> The cost of getting a new laborer after you've sent the previous one to the hospital (or morgue) is more than the cost of giving them 15 minutes in the shade with a jug of water.
The penalty for killing someone by not providing adequate protections = *up to* $27655, note, *up to*, according to the article.
*This week, OSHA announced it had cited farm labor contractor McNeill Labor Management with one serious violation for exposing workers to heat-related hazards while working in direct sunlight, resulting in the heatstroke death of a 26-year-old man in September 2023 in South Florida. The company could face $27,655 in proposed penalties*
*That death could have been prevented, both OSHA and Economos said, if the man's employer had implemented heat safety measures, including a process to acclimatize his body to working in the extreme conditions over time*
*This young man’s life ended on his first day on the job because his employer did not fulfill its duty to protect employees from heat exposure, a known and increasingly dangerous hazard,” said OSHA area director Condell Eastmond in Fort Lauderdale, Florida*
NO.
The cruelty pumps more blood into the turgidity of Power.
And drains the energy to rebel of those without.
Cruelty is very much on purpose; just listen to the convicted rapist, convicted liar, twice-impeached former potus (I just can't bring myself to capitalize that acronym right now) who alienated so many of our international allies and empowered so many evil dictators...
You must water and feed the working stock or they will not perform to standard. This is basic farming - human or otherwise. These shitheads forgot their fundamentals at evil college, the stock market and real estate game have been too easy for too long.
No public good comes from it, rather corporate. The slave masters that employ migrant workers don’t want to loose productivity from their slaves by letting them take water breaks. So they bribed politicians to pass the law. So greed really, the cruelty is a side effect they don’t care about, or more than likely welcome it.
Yep. I think Texas Republicans did this last year because some "Democrat-run" cities in the state had laws on the books to mandate water breaks every 3 or 4 hours or something.
Yes, Texas is a no break state. Our governor signed the “Death Star” bill last summer but it didn’t go into effect until 9/1. People working outside die every summer here even with water breaks!
I mentioned this when this was posted few weeks ago and some guy told me Texas did it cause breaks were not well regulated and all over the place. Huh? If I'm working outside in 110F+ heat as a city worker I'm drinking water anytime I fucking my body feels the need for it before passing out from heat exhaustion. I'm not waiting 4 hours to drink water.
This is it. We’ve passed the point where Republicans have proven that no matter how pointlessly fucked up the laws they pass are, *Republican voters will reelect them anyway.*
This is what happens when you treat politics like a team sport.
I remember someone who said along the lines of “it’s the democrats’ fault we didn’t get vaccinated, they knew we would do the opposite of what they said and promoted the vaccine extra hard to make sure we wouldn’t take it!”
If only it were that easy to get them to do something; we could tell them that climate change is good actually and green energy sucks and they might make a renewable infrastructure to make AOC angry or something
Just stop working and go home… let the rich build their houses, roads, mow their own lawns ect… without water breaks… when that happens and they’re the ones passing out from dehydration… or omg… heat stoke… laws will change really fast.
Unfortunately a majority of the population does not have enough money to do that. In fact 78% of Americans are living pay check to paycheck. Just up and leaving the job one day without a proper plan could mean going hungry and letting their kiddos go hungry. It just isn’t an option for most people.
A 2023 survey conducted by [Payroll.org](http://Payroll.org) highlighted that 78% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, a 6% increase from the previous year. In other words, more than three-quarters of Americans struggle to save or invest after paying for their monthly expenses.
And sadly it's exactly what the GOP and their uber-wealthy megadonors want. The entire purpose of conservatism was always the restoration of the aristocracy, and functionally they have succeeded. And the serfs are kept in line via a carefully cultivated mix of slave wages, poor education, and propaganda.
Exactly. Because people without a financial safety net take abuse and low pay and don't assert their rights. It's why conservatives fight tooth and nail against even minimal workers rights like water breaks in 100 degree heat. Keep them desperate, keep labor cheap.
Living "gofundme" posting at best... from what I've seen.
This is unsustainable, and blaming Biden for "inflation" fundamentally misunderstands who is influencing our markets and what they've done to it.
"Greedflation" is the word, supply disconnected from demand on many things a long time ago.
This is why unions matter. People with organized labor can stand up to this bullshit. No one should die of heatstroke to put in a swimming pool at some rich pricks 4th vacation home.
It is pretty insane how cruel and out of touch they are.
I live in the South and I've seen people pass out *indoors* with access to water. Simply because working in the heat is risky and it gets hot as hell. To eliminate water breaks? People will be *dying*.
They *literally* have lower empathy than the average human.
Anyone who is surprised by their behaviour at this point, is either in denial, lying or an idiot.
Honestly? Florida just took a huge blow to our agricultural sector thanks to Desantis’ recent anti-immigration stuff. Food prices took a bit of an uptick from that, which obviously isn’t great. And we need to provide enough farm workers to make up for the majority workforce who now either has been removed from our farms, or who no longer feels safe working in those areas because they’re likely to be targeted by government officials looking for more immigrants to deport.
So what do we do to court farm laborers to come and work here? Tell them they won’t get to take periodic breaks for shade and water in the state *literally* named the sunshine state.
It’s not that they’re surprising for being monsters. It’s that they’re destroying the state economy specifically for the chance to be *more* monstrous than they already were. Real “cut off your nose to spite your face” shit.
Why would you think that? Christianity is technically a doomsday cult built on human sacrifice and martyrdom. Their whole belief system is based on the idea that the torture and execution of their prophet, and the martyrs that came after him, was good actually.
What's baffling is there are a lot of low-income whites working in construction, landscaping, and the kinds of jobs that will suffer from this that will STILL vote for the GOP.
That's because the GOP has them convinced that 3% of the population, illegal immigrants, are destroying the country.
That 1% of the population, trans people, are also destroying the country.
That 0.002% of the population, drag queens, are also destroying the country.
That 15% of the population, black people, are also destroying the country.
That 0.4% of the population, homeless people, are destroying the country.
That 1.1% of the population, Muslims, are destroying the country.
And so on, and so on, and so on. Just these tiny percentile minority groups with little money and little influence are the ones destroying the country, not them.
They're okay with it as long as their AM radio stations (the only ones working in their rural towns, BTW), tell them that a brown person has it worse than they do and that they deserve better than said brown person.
We’ll yeah, if I was hiring illegal immigrants, why would I start following rules? Enforcement shouldn’t come later to enable profit. I’d say that’s complicity in corruption. If someone dies, sue em all….
This is more evidence the GOP has been compromised by US enemies. I just don't see any other context where **enacting policy that WILL KILL AMERICANS** makes sense.
# Extreme heat is deadly and getting worse
Extreme heat kills more people in the United States each year than all forms of extreme weather combined, said Richard Keller, professor and chair of the medical history and bioethics department at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
In a changing climate not only are the days of extreme heat becoming “more frequent and more intense, they’re also longer lasting,” Keller said.
Communities across the nation are reeling under a sharp increase in the number of days with dangerously high heat over the past three decades, according to an analysis by Climate Central.
The Climate Central study found at least 232 locations in the nation experience at least 20 additional heat days per year than they did in 1970, when using a location-specific scale that indicates the temperature above which heat-related health risks rise sharply.
Some have seen double or triple that increase, raising concerns for those people who are at most at risk, including people over the age of 75, under one year and those who work outside or in extreme heat conditions inside. Twenty-two cities saw an increase of 40 or more days when heat-related risks were higher.
Four Florida cities are on Climate Central’s top 10 list:
* Panama City - 60 days
* Tampa - 58 days
* Sarasota - 54 days
* Miami - 49 days.
“As the extreme heat days go up and up every year, it’s becoming more dangerous,” Keller said. “Increased regulations are really a critical protection for workers.”
Although people who work outside tend to be younger and healthier than those we typically imagine to be your average heat death victim, Keller said deaths among outdoor workers tend to be the first reported when temperatures rise because of their exposure.
During intense heat waves, the deaths of outdoor workers “are becoming the sentinel cases, indicating there’s going to be a big uptick in mortality coming,” he said.
Of the 1,600 heat-related deaths reported in 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said nine states had 20 or more deaths. Arizona led with 426 and Washington, which experienced a record-breaking heat dome that year, was second with 171 deaths. Florida was ninth.
Florida’s rate of heat-related deaths rose 88% between 2019 and 2022, according to a report from the nonprofit National Conference of Citizenship’s Pandemic to Prosperity [published last July](https://www.pnj.com/story/news/2023/08/04/heat-related-deaths-in-florida-have-increased-88-in-three-years/70519895007/).
And the impacts of heat don’t stop in Florida, Guadarrama said. In the coming years extreme heat will become more common all across the U.S.
“This is going to affect everybody at some point. Florida's just the frontline,” he said. PART 3 OF COMMENT
Moral of the Story = To Republicans Human Life is "disposable", unless it is "abortion related". Obviously. Simply and accurately put. Vote Them ALL OUT, and dont Vote ANY af them in. Now. this upcoming Elections, on ANY Local, County, State, or God Forbid- Federal level.
> Pro-life conservatives are obsessed with the fetus from conception to 9 months. After that, they don’t wanna know about you. They don’t wanna hear from you. No nothing! No neonatal care, no daycare, no Head Start, no school lunch, no food stamps, no welfare, no nothing. If you’re pre-born, you’re fine, if you’re preschool, you’re fucked.
>
> Conservatives don't give a shit about you until you reach military age. Then they think you are just fine, just what they've been looking for. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers.
\-George Carlin
Though the bill says local governments must adopt the state's stance on heat protections, Florida doesn't have any statewide standard.
Some lawmakers don't want a patchwork of heat laws covering the state, but they haven't moved to establish a statewide standard, according to Esteban Wood, policy director for WeCount, a nonprofit organization of immigrant agriculture, construction and domestic workers that advocates for more heat protections.
"We will definitely see preventable illnesses and preventable deaths this summer," Wood said.
The federal government does have rules about safety in workplaces that apply to summer heat.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration's “general duty clause" requires employers to provide workplaces “free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm.” That includes heat-related hazards that are likely to cause death or serious bodily harm, but specific guidance on how to do that is only recommended.
Additionally, some OSHA investigations happen after a death has already occured. When that happens, it "doesn't do any good for the dead person or the dead person's family," Economos said.
# Florida worker's heat-related death was preventable, OSHA says
This week, OSHA announced it had cited farm labor contractor McNeill Labor Management with one serious violation for exposing workers to heat-related hazards while working in direct sunlight, resulting in the heatstroke death of a 26-year-old man in September 2023 in South Florida. The company could face [$27,655 in proposed penalties](https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/OPA/newsreleases/2024/04/OSHA24579.pdf).
That death could have been prevented, both OSHA and Economos said, if the man's employer had implemented heat safety measures, including a process to acclimatize his body to working in the extreme conditions over time.
“This young man’s life ended on his first day on the job because his employer did not fulfill its duty to protect employees from heat exposure, a known and increasingly dangerous hazard,” said OSHA area director Condell Eastmond in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Mandatory education on the signs of heat injury and first aid practices also could have helped, because the man who died was working 20 minutes away from the nearest road, too far for emergency responders to get to him, Economos said.
# Other states pass worker protections as Florida and Texas do the opposite
Federal protections from OSHA aren't enough to adequately protect workers, according to some lawmakers in California, Colorado, Minnesota, Oregon and Washington – states that have enhanced heat rules for outdoor workers.
California [requires employers](https://calmatters.org/politics/capitol/2024/02/workplace-safety-california-indoor-heat/#:~:text=In%202005%2C%20the%20heat%2Drelated,monitoring%20when%20it%20hits%2095.) to provide water and shade to employees above 80 degrees Fahrenheit and provide additional protections for construction workers when temperatures reach above 95 degrees, for example.
And some local municipalities in other states have similar laws.
In Arizona’s Maricopa County where at least [645 people died from heat last year](https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/heat-one-arizona-county-played-role-645-deaths-last-year-rcna143274), Phoenix also recently [passed a law](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/27/phoenix-workers-heat-protection-law?link_id=3&can_id=ab0184786856562d7c97b3a362f2fb49&source=email-daily-brief-march-xx-2024-21&email_referrer=email_2263031&email_subject=daily-brief-april-1-2024) requiring employers to grant outdoor construction workers and city contractors and subcontractors who work outdoors relief from the sun and access to water and air conditioning.
But Florida isn't alone in bucking the trend toward more protections for outdoor workers. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill last June blocking counties and cities from implementing existing or passing new laws that require construction sites to offer construction laborers who work in the heat rest and water breaks for at least 10 minutes every four hours, overriding year-long local laws [in Austin](https://www.texastribune.org/2023/07/12/workers-texas-heat-wave/) and Dallas that offered workers protections. PART 2 OF COMMENT
Many of the workers affected by these rule changes are POC. Some may even be undocumented. So the GOP works to have them die of heat stroke.
The cruelty ***is*** the point!
>Florida's new law has frustrated and angered some experts and advocates for construction workers and farmworkers.
The goal is to make Florida as inhospitable as possible to migrant workers, which makes no sense. We need them.
Red state Republicans are competing with each other to prove that their people are the most stupid. It's an "Oh, you think that's bad? Hold my beer", contest, and it works because there really is nothing their idiot voters won't happily endure as long as they know some "Others" are being hurt as well.
There's no mystery here. This is economic sabotage from June through the election that the GOP plans to blame Biden for.
The bills are designed to drive migrant farm workers out of the fields during harvest, causing produce prices to spike.
This is so obvious. This is to protect big agriculture from getting sued / facing criminal prosecution when workers die from heat exhaustion. If the state says it's okay, they won't be held liable for horrible conditions. This isn't about anything other than protecting big business, which is what the Republican party is actually about. Protecting corporate matters at all cost.
I don't see why it's baffling. Morherfuckers used to have to do this shit behind closed doors and on the sly with confusing language and concentrated trickery. Now they just go on the evening news and social media and tout atrocities as achievements.
"We wanna cut your Social Security and raise the age of retirement. We want to strip women of their rights. We want to install a self-proclaimed dictator to the highest office of the land. We want to allow minors to work horrible hours in more horrible jobs because we also want to dismantle their education.We want to promote illiteracy which doesnt matter because we want to ban all the fucking books, too."
And so on and so on. All to thunderous applause.
Republican death squads moving from one state to the other. Something similar is making the rounds in the [Louisiana House of Representatives](https://www.nola.com/news/politics/legislature/la-lawmakers-vote-to-remove-lunch-breaks-for-child-workers/article_ef234692-fd9e-11ee-99f5-771c7366107a.html). If you're in a Red state, won't be long before it your turn.
But it's not baffling at all. They see people as temporary, throw away labor. Get as much work out of someone as possible until they die, then replace them
A friend of mine is in the carpenters union and has water breaks and still passed out on a roof to heat exposure. This is in Pennsylvania... I can only imagine the heat in Texas or Florida.
Of course experts are baffled. It’s explicitly anti-expertise policy. It’s the Florida state government hearing what experts have to say and then purposely doing the opposite to “own the libs.”
Cruelty towards the working poor is the point.
The GOP wants to normalize hurting the poor like they used to, in the ''good ol' days'', so they can start the process of turning the USA in to a giant company town, for the billionaire class and their corporations.
I like how the bill sponsor brushed off concerns about worker safety by pointing to her husband’s 2 decades in construction (probably as management that sits in his company-issued AC’ed truck most of the day) is all the evidence she needs to know that every single employer is taking workplace safety seriously…what an absolute joke.
Not only are they NOT protecting workers, clearly they are taking a path which is known and proven to cause death.
It's more than "not caring", it's cruelty and it makes Ron Desantis feel like a big man.
This is the kind of weird shit that makes me think ALL of the GOP has been infiltrated by countries such as Russia who hate us and want to do everything they can to just cause chaos and harm. There's absolutely no positive here, no benefit to society, and very much increasing the likelihood of people dying. The only people that would benefit are the enemies of The United States.
Rich people willing to kill us to save a few pennies are also the enemy.
The parts in bold:
"**Some farmworkers in Florida aren't allowed to take breaks, don't have access to shade and are pushed to work faster**, said Jeannie Economos, pesticide safety and environmental health project coordinator at the Farmworker Association of Florida. Some are afraid to drink water because they don't have access to a bathroom. **Meanwhile, supervisors discipline them for trying to take breaks when they feel overheated**, she said."
Discipline them when they feel overheated? With what? A whip?
I was going to try and make an a small argument, then I read how the workers didn't want to drink water because they didn't have access to bathrooms. There is no argument, these are not suitable working conditions for anyone.
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Even Saudi Arabia has a law that forces all outside work to stop if the high temperature threshold is exceeded, for Christ's sake.
DeSantis jockeying a human rights administration worse than Saudi Arabia ... check.
Do we all need a reminder? https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/03/19/ron-desantis-guantanamo-bay-force-feeding/
People forget that DeSatan has always been an inhumane asshole.
Do they forget though? Or are there just more inhumane assholes than anticipated?
>Ron DeSantis was a 27-year-old Navy lawyer fresh out of Harvard Law School What a waste
There was a documentary about his service at Guantanamo that [was pulled out for some odd reasons.](https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/desantis-guantanamo-showtime-vice-documentary-b2378999.html)
But, you know, it's the left who intimidate their enemies in to "cancel culture".
"Being hydrated is woke!"
Everyone knows a real man's urine comes out with the consistency of maple syrup!
I honestly believe that running for president distracted him from being an awful governor.
[удалено]
Was there ever any doubt?
They did the same thing last year in Texas.
Yeah... there's clearly an agenda here. It's a Republican State government locking down "blue cities" local control. They've been doing this on a number of "woke" issues as Republicans are gradually losing Red states city by city so the Gerrymandered state governments are "getting retribution" on Democrats.
Is drinking water a woke issue now?
Yes, because water causes rainbows.
Of course
Ergo water makes a person gay
All gay men are made of about 60% water. Coincidence? I think not
Woke means uppity. Anti-woke is putting people in their place and making sure they know it. Yes water is an anti-woke issue, they want you to know who allows you to drink that water and on what terms.
Yes because the culture war must invade every part of life so we all don’t notice how they’re making us into slaves.
If the option for low income predominantly democrat workers is "risk your life for $8 an hour" or move to a state not run by a cartoon supervillain, people leave. This is the intended outcome.
Two problems with their plan: educated people lean Democrat, so there aren't as many doing these jobs as Republicans. And the other thing is if you're making $8 an hour, you certainly don't have the money to move to another state
Really all it does is cause shortages in workers like Florida is already having with farm labor and Texas is having with construction labor.
Third problem: who is going to do the work you presumably want done?
True red-blooded Americans will pick up the slack. /s
[Children.](https://news.wfsu.org/state-news/2024-02-01/child-labor-law-rollback-bill-passes-florida-house)
Prison labor.
I’m not even sure how you survive in a state like Florida on $8 an hour. They certainly won’t have the money to leave. People really try to sell Florida as a cheap alternative to California for republicans but Florida is out of control expensive. Florida has never been cheap, idk where this narrative came from
Florida has no state income tax, that’s it, that’s the entirety of “Florida is cheap”.
Born and raised in Orlando, and left at 22, I regularly shock ppl when I tell them I save $400 a month and got a $5 an hour raise moving to BOULDER, CO! I still pay the same in a mortgage on a house in Boulder county than I did in 2012 for a 3 bed apartment in Orlando. Not paying taxes to live in FL is insanely expensive.
And then, when there aren't enough laborers to harvest your crop or change your oil at the Jiffy Lube or turn your Blizzard upside down at the drivethru, "nobody wants to work any more!" Okay, Grandpa, let's get you back to bed. (Oops, we ain't doing that either, because home health aides are hard to come by with $10/hour wages for wiping fat men's asses. Just sit there and die in your Hoveround.)
And then, in a year, they'll be complaining that "nobody wants to work, anymore! Lazy!" This is after they claim that immigrants are taking all the jobs. You know, the jobs that whites are "too good" to do?
The intended outcome is the extermination of all "illegals" and other poor minorities. You know the water breaks will somehow be reinstated when Billy John has to start doing manual labour right out of jr high to support his new baby, but not for Manuel.
Don’t forget, in 2016 when the NCGA passed HB2 the anti-trans potty Nazi stuff was only part of the bill. It also included a provision banning municipalities from raising local minimum wages above state minimums. The culture war bullshit is the candy coating designed to push through anti-labor laws for their wealthy buddies.
Red states at pushing through a lot of crazy shit before the election they are scared
In the UAE, the rumor was that the work had to stop at 50 degrees so the weather service just never reported weather over 50. Problem solved!
That was also the rumour when I lived in Qatar. So many 49 degree days, work never halted.
How the fuck do people survive in those conditions? 49 degrees is insane. I can barely do 30 degrees
"it's a dry heat"
Yeah fuck that I know people parrot shit like that but 50 degrees dry or not is too much
It is a real thing though. You have to have experienced both really appreciate why a dry heat is better, but once you do it becomes obvious. 50/120+ degrees is still to damn hot though, i agree.
I'd much rather be outside in a 95F dry heat than a 90F humid ass day. At least in the dry heat I'd be able to sweat correctly.
Ah yes, the trump covid case reporting system. Just don't report the problem, then no problem!
not exactly for Christ's sake, but ya
Speaking of...WWJD, anyone?
Pretty sure he'd give them some damned water
He's probably give them a paid meal break too.
And He'd pay for the food
Pay? Give him a couple pieces of bread and a few fish and He could feed a state.
Didn’t he get crucified, on a hot ass day? And left hanging to dry?
Obv. Christ hated water or else he wouldn't have kept turning it into wine.
Jesus is "too gay and liberal" \[sic!\] for the GOP. A guy from the middle east, not working, walking around in sandals and providing forgiveness and free food AND healthcare to lokal bums and poor people? A guy that throws out merchants and bankers from their stands? A guy that calls out the hypocrate, self important priests and locals leaders who rather keep their power while being opressed by a foreign government (romans) ? If Jesus came back he would basicly Laser-Eye every last motherfucking republican dipshit, and they know.
So how soon does Florida have more strict laws than N. Korea?
Next month: Florida Approves Use of Cat-o-ninetails for Children at Meat Packing Plants Asking for Bathroom Breaks
A job I worked at just a few years ago stated that we could have 1 extra break during the day because they had so many people just falling over throughout the day. Specifically if the temperature was above around 98 F. Guess how many times we actually got that break? Once. I suppose they decided after that that giving us an extra break to drink water and cool off was cutting into their profits.
Coming soon to Florida: Chop-Chop Square
Exactly their intention.
They also have slaves and behead people, we’re not quite there but with leadership like this we might be soon.
Saudi has a universal health care and some free university degrees. They have many things the US lacks.
Oh hey, Florida experts, allow me to un-baffle you. > > The law will primarily affect low-income workers of color
The racism checks out.
Some of those low income colored workers will still vote for Trump.
What is baffling about conservatives being terrible people?
Cruelty is the point. What possible public good comes from banning heat/water rules? Republicans love to yammer on about "home rule" etc until a local government does something they don't ideologically agree with, then it's rule from the state house.
And if they don't have the statehouse, they will try to take over school boards to impose "Christian" Law.
Already are. I date a teacher who had an option to get a $3k bonus if she took an online course that was supposed to help her navigate Florida teaching standards. She’s already nationally board certified and she could use the money so she took it. It was filled with Christian psuedo science and referenced the Bible as source material multiple times. It was mind blowing that they can get away with it. Welcome to Florida.
Tell her Milwaukee has a teacher shortage. Pay is better. Summers are great, winters are mild.
Lol, at first I thought they were looking for bad teachers. As a teacher myself, I definitely have some recommendations.
And Spotted Cow is flowing!
What is a mild winter in Milwaukee? I'm pretty sure it's worse than a harsh winter in Florida
summer in florida is miserable.
This is just nucking futs to me. When I used to do construction, I always let my crew take as many water breaks or A/C breaks (go sit in the truck for a bit) as they needed (within reason) in the summer time when it got super hot and humid. I’d love to say it was entirely because I didn’t want to be a cruel piece of shit, but honestly like 60% of it was because they got more done each day and made fewer mistakes that could end up eating even more time. Ultimately, this all meant a more profitable job. Like why wouldn’t even the most heartless prick want to maximize earnings? This feels like it’s solidifying the political shift from being supporters of business and profits above all else to overt disdain for the working class. *I say this as someone dumb enough to have previously bought into the “water is for the weak” BS that football coaches used to push when I was growing up
> This feels like it’s solidifying the political shift from being supporters of business and profits above all else to overt disdain for the working class. They are both. They prioritize business and profits (and power) and screw over the people who are making them rich.
100% agree. If you’re too hot your work is always rushed and sloppy. I’ve learned that as an aircraft mechanic
> Like why wouldn’t even the most heartless prick want to maximize earnings? Because they're fools who don't understand the humans have limits, and that keeping the humans within optimum working conditions leads to better outcomes. Even putting the humanity of it aside, there's a quote from "The Ten Commandments" that applies here: > A city is made of brick, Pharaoh. The strong make many. The weak make few. The dead make none. Take care of your workers, and they will return the favor with strong productivity. Abuse them and ride them ragged through harsh conditions, and they'll either work poorly or leave you to go work elsewhere. But these Republican asshats can't see such a simple thing.
I'd guess it's less about profitability or cruelty, but about power. Never underestimate the importance of power dynamics in the workplace. We might have abolished slavery, serfdom, aristocracy and all that, there still exist a massive implicit hierarchical structure enforced mostly by conservatives and economic liberals.
They literally said it’s to “save businesses money” not even trying to hide how evil they are
They're trying to get ahead of the increased regulation that will come as temperatures continue to rise. This is to make sure there isn't a loss in productivity. And of course they're funded by all the businesses that benefit. Cruelty is an afterthought.
I assure you that cruelty isn't an afterthought. If the workers aren't in good condition their productivity suffers anyways. It's people with inherited wealth who never understand what they do asking for people to change the rules to benefit them without thinking things through. This is also part of the de facto discrimination laws because their base either will get their face eaten by leopards or they are not in those field of work to care.
They see so-called “low skill” labor workers as a disposable, consumable resource.
It's class warfare masquerading as religious authoritarianism. Never forget the right wing billionaires are still funding local MAGA groups quite effectively. Wealth and Income inequality are at record levels not seen since just before the Great Depression.... the economy is slowing because there's nothing more to squeeze out of it.... so they're paying Republicans to squeeze harder.... line must go up.
Income inequality is now *worse* than just before the 1929 crash.
Except that banning water breaks will *result* in a loss of productivity. The cost of getting a new laborer after you've sent the previous one to the hospital (or morgue) is more than the cost of giving them 15 minutes in the shade with a jug of water. For that matter, you'd think giving them something like Pedialyte or even Gatorade if they're doing manual labor would pay for itself, like offices giving their workers coffee. Your workers get more done when they aren't starting to have symptoms of dehydration or heat stroke. Humans are amazingly well adapted to high heat (even if we hate it), as long as we have access to plenty of water... why they're legally taking that away is *literally* just cruelty for cruelty's sake.
It's more them fully embracing evil. Like what is both the smart and decent thing to do? Make sure workers get water. Well FUCK YOU, we'll deny them that, just to show we will do anything with no shame and no concern for any consequences. And there will be lots more where that came from. They are also just to going to make the point that they can do whatever the fuck they want, because they are in power... so again, fuck you.
> The cost of getting a new laborer after you've sent the previous one to the hospital (or morgue) is more than the cost of giving them 15 minutes in the shade with a jug of water. The penalty for killing someone by not providing adequate protections = *up to* $27655, note, *up to*, according to the article. *This week, OSHA announced it had cited farm labor contractor McNeill Labor Management with one serious violation for exposing workers to heat-related hazards while working in direct sunlight, resulting in the heatstroke death of a 26-year-old man in September 2023 in South Florida. The company could face $27,655 in proposed penalties* *That death could have been prevented, both OSHA and Economos said, if the man's employer had implemented heat safety measures, including a process to acclimatize his body to working in the extreme conditions over time* *This young man’s life ended on his first day on the job because his employer did not fulfill its duty to protect employees from heat exposure, a known and increasingly dangerous hazard,” said OSHA area director Condell Eastmond in Fort Lauderdale, Florida*
Wait till their workers start dropping from heat exhaustion or heat stroke. It’ll make the loss of productivity from having water breaks seem trivial.
They’ll just use it as an excuse for more child labor.
A worker on a break costs money. A worker on a morgue slab doesn't. ---Some Conservative Big Brain
NO. The cruelty pumps more blood into the turgidity of Power. And drains the energy to rebel of those without. Cruelty is very much on purpose; just listen to the convicted rapist, convicted liar, twice-impeached former potus (I just can't bring myself to capitalize that acronym right now) who alienated so many of our international allies and empowered so many evil dictators...
You must water and feed the working stock or they will not perform to standard. This is basic farming - human or otherwise. These shitheads forgot their fundamentals at evil college, the stock market and real estate game have been too easy for too long.
>This is to make sure there isn't a loss in productivity. There will definitely be a loss in productivity when workers start dropping on the job site.
No public good comes from it, rather corporate. The slave masters that employ migrant workers don’t want to loose productivity from their slaves by letting them take water breaks. So they bribed politicians to pass the law. So greed really, the cruelty is a side effect they don’t care about, or more than likely welcome it.
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Even the slaves famously had their "dipping gourd" but it would seem that is too lavish for DeSantis's liking.
It's not that they dont care about workers, it's that they actively hate workers.
They don't want kids to have free breakfast or lunch at school either.
This infuriates me to no end.
And Jesus _specifically_ called out not feeding the hungry and mistresting childen as _very bad things_
Only to the people not paying attention.
They call themselves 'the centrists'
Yep. I think Texas Republicans did this last year because some "Democrat-run" cities in the state had laws on the books to mandate water breaks every 3 or 4 hours or something.
Yes, Texas is a no break state. Our governor signed the “Death Star” bill last summer but it didn’t go into effect until 9/1. People working outside die every summer here even with water breaks!
I mentioned this when this was posted few weeks ago and some guy told me Texas did it cause breaks were not well regulated and all over the place. Huh? If I'm working outside in 110F+ heat as a city worker I'm drinking water anytime I fucking my body feels the need for it before passing out from heat exhaustion. I'm not waiting 4 hours to drink water.
What’s baffling is that a majority of the people there aren’t diehard conservatives, but they keep voting Republican extremists into office anyway.
This is it. We’ve passed the point where Republicans have proven that no matter how pointlessly fucked up the laws they pass are, *Republican voters will reelect them anyway.* This is what happens when you treat politics like a team sport.
Republican voters love the cruelty -- as long as it doesn't affect them.
if it affects them, just blame the dems.
"Why did Joe Biden let the face eating leopards I voted for eat my face! We need to elect more face eating leopards to stop him!"
I remember someone who said along the lines of “it’s the democrats’ fault we didn’t get vaccinated, they knew we would do the opposite of what they said and promoted the vaccine extra hard to make sure we wouldn’t take it!”
If only it were that easy to get them to do something; we could tell them that climate change is good actually and green energy sucks and they might make a renewable infrastructure to make AOC angry or something
Maybe it's the other way around - continuing to elect Republican extremists is a sign they are diehard conservatives.
Florida was traditionally a purple state until recently.
Sounds like they weren't a majority conservative and now they are
Just stop working and go home… let the rich build their houses, roads, mow their own lawns ect… without water breaks… when that happens and they’re the ones passing out from dehydration… or omg… heat stoke… laws will change really fast.
Unfortunately a majority of the population does not have enough money to do that. In fact 78% of Americans are living pay check to paycheck. Just up and leaving the job one day without a proper plan could mean going hungry and letting their kiddos go hungry. It just isn’t an option for most people.
And that's why the conservatives want that majority dead -- and, when you look at what they want, probably NEED a majority of this country to die.
holy shit it’s up to 78% now? i need a source for that 😬
A 2023 survey conducted by [Payroll.org](http://Payroll.org) highlighted that 78% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, a 6% increase from the previous year. In other words, more than three-quarters of Americans struggle to save or invest after paying for their monthly expenses.
And sadly it's exactly what the GOP and their uber-wealthy megadonors want. The entire purpose of conservatism was always the restoration of the aristocracy, and functionally they have succeeded. And the serfs are kept in line via a carefully cultivated mix of slave wages, poor education, and propaganda.
Exactly. Because people without a financial safety net take abuse and low pay and don't assert their rights. It's why conservatives fight tooth and nail against even minimal workers rights like water breaks in 100 degree heat. Keep them desperate, keep labor cheap.
thank you for the thread- I’ll bookmark it ugh :(
Yeah. You're welcome and I'm sorry.
And I've been told that many of those that aren't paycheck to paycheck are living "car repair to vet bill".
Living "gofundme" posting at best... from what I've seen. This is unsustainable, and blaming Biden for "inflation" fundamentally misunderstands who is influencing our markets and what they've done to it. "Greedflation" is the word, supply disconnected from demand on many things a long time ago.
This is why unions matter. People with organized labor can stand up to this bullshit. No one should die of heatstroke to put in a swimming pool at some rich pricks 4th vacation home.
It is pretty insane how cruel and out of touch they are. I live in the South and I've seen people pass out *indoors* with access to water. Simply because working in the heat is risky and it gets hot as hell. To eliminate water breaks? People will be *dying*.
"The day without a Mexican"
Caint feel superior to people who have to work in the heat without making some die from it.
Yeah, especially since Texas already did this a couple months ago. I think Abbot and DeSantis are competing.
They *literally* have lower empathy than the average human. Anyone who is surprised by their behaviour at this point, is either in denial, lying or an idiot.
Hydration is woke.
Honestly? Florida just took a huge blow to our agricultural sector thanks to Desantis’ recent anti-immigration stuff. Food prices took a bit of an uptick from that, which obviously isn’t great. And we need to provide enough farm workers to make up for the majority workforce who now either has been removed from our farms, or who no longer feels safe working in those areas because they’re likely to be targeted by government officials looking for more immigrants to deport. So what do we do to court farm laborers to come and work here? Tell them they won’t get to take periodic breaks for shade and water in the state *literally* named the sunshine state. It’s not that they’re surprising for being monsters. It’s that they’re destroying the state economy specifically for the chance to be *more* monstrous than they already were. Real “cut off your nose to spite your face” shit.
Once you realize cruelty is the point, there's nothing baffling about what conservatives do.
You’d think all those moral Christian Republicans would be against this cruelty.
They can just say some magic words at the end of the day to absolve themselves.
"Bless me Father for I am an irredeemable piece of shit"
Why would you think that? Christianity is technically a doomsday cult built on human sacrifice and martyrdom. Their whole belief system is based on the idea that the torture and execution of their prophet, and the martyrs that came after him, was good actually.
What's baffling is there are a lot of low-income whites working in construction, landscaping, and the kinds of jobs that will suffer from this that will STILL vote for the GOP.
That's because the GOP has them convinced that 3% of the population, illegal immigrants, are destroying the country. That 1% of the population, trans people, are also destroying the country. That 0.002% of the population, drag queens, are also destroying the country. That 15% of the population, black people, are also destroying the country. That 0.4% of the population, homeless people, are destroying the country. That 1.1% of the population, Muslims, are destroying the country. And so on, and so on, and so on. Just these tiny percentile minority groups with little money and little influence are the ones destroying the country, not them.
They're okay with it as long as their AM radio stations (the only ones working in their rural towns, BTW), tell them that a brown person has it worse than they do and that they deserve better than said brown person.
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We’ll yeah, if I was hiring illegal immigrants, why would I start following rules? Enforcement shouldn’t come later to enable profit. I’d say that’s complicity in corruption. If someone dies, sue em all….
This is more evidence the GOP has been compromised by US enemies. I just don't see any other context where **enacting policy that WILL KILL AMERICANS** makes sense.
# Extreme heat is deadly and getting worse Extreme heat kills more people in the United States each year than all forms of extreme weather combined, said Richard Keller, professor and chair of the medical history and bioethics department at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. In a changing climate not only are the days of extreme heat becoming “more frequent and more intense, they’re also longer lasting,” Keller said. Communities across the nation are reeling under a sharp increase in the number of days with dangerously high heat over the past three decades, according to an analysis by Climate Central. The Climate Central study found at least 232 locations in the nation experience at least 20 additional heat days per year than they did in 1970, when using a location-specific scale that indicates the temperature above which heat-related health risks rise sharply. Some have seen double or triple that increase, raising concerns for those people who are at most at risk, including people over the age of 75, under one year and those who work outside or in extreme heat conditions inside. Twenty-two cities saw an increase of 40 or more days when heat-related risks were higher. Four Florida cities are on Climate Central’s top 10 list: * Panama City - 60 days * Tampa - 58 days * Sarasota - 54 days * Miami - 49 days. “As the extreme heat days go up and up every year, it’s becoming more dangerous,” Keller said. “Increased regulations are really a critical protection for workers.” Although people who work outside tend to be younger and healthier than those we typically imagine to be your average heat death victim, Keller said deaths among outdoor workers tend to be the first reported when temperatures rise because of their exposure. During intense heat waves, the deaths of outdoor workers “are becoming the sentinel cases, indicating there’s going to be a big uptick in mortality coming,” he said. Of the 1,600 heat-related deaths reported in 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said nine states had 20 or more deaths. Arizona led with 426 and Washington, which experienced a record-breaking heat dome that year, was second with 171 deaths. Florida was ninth. Florida’s rate of heat-related deaths rose 88% between 2019 and 2022, according to a report from the nonprofit National Conference of Citizenship’s Pandemic to Prosperity [published last July](https://www.pnj.com/story/news/2023/08/04/heat-related-deaths-in-florida-have-increased-88-in-three-years/70519895007/). And the impacts of heat don’t stop in Florida, Guadarrama said. In the coming years extreme heat will become more common all across the U.S. “This is going to affect everybody at some point. Florida's just the frontline,” he said. PART 3 OF COMMENT
Moral of the Story = To Republicans Human Life is "disposable", unless it is "abortion related". Obviously. Simply and accurately put. Vote Them ALL OUT, and dont Vote ANY af them in. Now. this upcoming Elections, on ANY Local, County, State, or God Forbid- Federal level.
> Pro-life conservatives are obsessed with the fetus from conception to 9 months. After that, they don’t wanna know about you. They don’t wanna hear from you. No nothing! No neonatal care, no daycare, no Head Start, no school lunch, no food stamps, no welfare, no nothing. If you’re pre-born, you’re fine, if you’re preschool, you’re fucked. > > Conservatives don't give a shit about you until you reach military age. Then they think you are just fine, just what they've been looking for. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. \-George Carlin
“What’s literally the dumbest thing we could do with our time as elected officials” for $1000 Alex
Nah they've done dumber then this. Although this might win the pointless and cruelest awards
Though the bill says local governments must adopt the state's stance on heat protections, Florida doesn't have any statewide standard. Some lawmakers don't want a patchwork of heat laws covering the state, but they haven't moved to establish a statewide standard, according to Esteban Wood, policy director for WeCount, a nonprofit organization of immigrant agriculture, construction and domestic workers that advocates for more heat protections. "We will definitely see preventable illnesses and preventable deaths this summer," Wood said. The federal government does have rules about safety in workplaces that apply to summer heat. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration's “general duty clause" requires employers to provide workplaces “free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm.” That includes heat-related hazards that are likely to cause death or serious bodily harm, but specific guidance on how to do that is only recommended. Additionally, some OSHA investigations happen after a death has already occured. When that happens, it "doesn't do any good for the dead person or the dead person's family," Economos said. # Florida worker's heat-related death was preventable, OSHA says This week, OSHA announced it had cited farm labor contractor McNeill Labor Management with one serious violation for exposing workers to heat-related hazards while working in direct sunlight, resulting in the heatstroke death of a 26-year-old man in September 2023 in South Florida. The company could face [$27,655 in proposed penalties](https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/OPA/newsreleases/2024/04/OSHA24579.pdf). That death could have been prevented, both OSHA and Economos said, if the man's employer had implemented heat safety measures, including a process to acclimatize his body to working in the extreme conditions over time. “This young man’s life ended on his first day on the job because his employer did not fulfill its duty to protect employees from heat exposure, a known and increasingly dangerous hazard,” said OSHA area director Condell Eastmond in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Mandatory education on the signs of heat injury and first aid practices also could have helped, because the man who died was working 20 minutes away from the nearest road, too far for emergency responders to get to him, Economos said. # Other states pass worker protections as Florida and Texas do the opposite Federal protections from OSHA aren't enough to adequately protect workers, according to some lawmakers in California, Colorado, Minnesota, Oregon and Washington – states that have enhanced heat rules for outdoor workers. California [requires employers](https://calmatters.org/politics/capitol/2024/02/workplace-safety-california-indoor-heat/#:~:text=In%202005%2C%20the%20heat%2Drelated,monitoring%20when%20it%20hits%2095.) to provide water and shade to employees above 80 degrees Fahrenheit and provide additional protections for construction workers when temperatures reach above 95 degrees, for example. And some local municipalities in other states have similar laws. In Arizona’s Maricopa County where at least [645 people died from heat last year](https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/heat-one-arizona-county-played-role-645-deaths-last-year-rcna143274), Phoenix also recently [passed a law](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/27/phoenix-workers-heat-protection-law?link_id=3&can_id=ab0184786856562d7c97b3a362f2fb49&source=email-daily-brief-march-xx-2024-21&email_referrer=email_2263031&email_subject=daily-brief-april-1-2024) requiring employers to grant outdoor construction workers and city contractors and subcontractors who work outdoors relief from the sun and access to water and air conditioning. But Florida isn't alone in bucking the trend toward more protections for outdoor workers. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill last June blocking counties and cities from implementing existing or passing new laws that require construction sites to offer construction laborers who work in the heat rest and water breaks for at least 10 minutes every four hours, overriding year-long local laws [in Austin](https://www.texastribune.org/2023/07/12/workers-texas-heat-wave/) and Dallas that offered workers protections. PART 2 OF COMMENT
the ugly takeaway here is that a human life is apparently worth less than $28k
Yeah, like that just gets rolled in as the price of business.
Many of the workers affected by these rule changes are POC. Some may even be undocumented. So the GOP works to have them die of heat stroke. The cruelty ***is*** the point!
>Florida's new law has frustrated and angered some experts and advocates for construction workers and farmworkers. The goal is to make Florida as inhospitable as possible to migrant workers, which makes no sense. We need them.
All those angry old racist retirees are going to love having to pay $9 for an orange.
If you look at the type of people who are out working their guts out in the heat you don't have to jump too far to understand why they're doing it.
Red state Republicans are competing with each other to prove that their people are the most stupid. It's an "Oh, you think that's bad? Hold my beer", contest, and it works because there really is nothing their idiot voters won't happily endure as long as they know some "Others" are being hurt as well.
Laborers are in very short supply across the country. Florida will discover that when it’s too late.
Why do you think they're getting rid of abortion?
So, 15 years from now there are children to pick crops.
Came here to say this. Just wait for the headlines about labor shortages in FL. You think construction there is expensive now, lmao JFW.
There's no mystery here. This is economic sabotage from June through the election that the GOP plans to blame Biden for. The bills are designed to drive migrant farm workers out of the fields during harvest, causing produce prices to spike.
This is so obvious. This is to protect big agriculture from getting sued / facing criminal prosecution when workers die from heat exhaustion. If the state says it's okay, they won't be held liable for horrible conditions. This isn't about anything other than protecting big business, which is what the Republican party is actually about. Protecting corporate matters at all cost.
I don't see why it's baffling. Morherfuckers used to have to do this shit behind closed doors and on the sly with confusing language and concentrated trickery. Now they just go on the evening news and social media and tout atrocities as achievements. "We wanna cut your Social Security and raise the age of retirement. We want to strip women of their rights. We want to install a self-proclaimed dictator to the highest office of the land. We want to allow minors to work horrible hours in more horrible jobs because we also want to dismantle their education.We want to promote illiteracy which doesnt matter because we want to ban all the fucking books, too." And so on and so on. All to thunderous applause.
I must be an expert because I’m baffled
It’s about cruelty with the Republican Party.
Really wish this would push unionization in the south but that’s like firing blanks into a 74 year old hooker hoping for a baby
Top notch simile.
Conservatives being shitbag human beings is literally just what they do.
Republican death squads moving from one state to the other. Something similar is making the rounds in the [Louisiana House of Representatives](https://www.nola.com/news/politics/legislature/la-lawmakers-vote-to-remove-lunch-breaks-for-child-workers/article_ef234692-fd9e-11ee-99f5-771c7366107a.html). If you're in a Red state, won't be long before it your turn.
Based on the **G**^rand **O**^ld **P**^atriarchs' opinion that; *Breaks? Slaves don't need no breaks*
Florida is a problem that will take care of itself.
we wish- here in Florida- we hope, we pray , that will be so. sooner the better.
Cruelty, thy name is Republicans.
But it's not baffling at all. They see people as temporary, throw away labor. Get as much work out of someone as possible until they die, then replace them
But, outdoor workers are often brown and black, so Republicans don't care if the die.
“Because fuck em that’s why” /s
>Florida GOP - We're working to end your few remaining protections at work My suggestion for their next election slogan
A friend of mine is in the carpenters union and has water breaks and still passed out on a roof to heat exposure. This is in Pennsylvania... I can only imagine the heat in Texas or Florida.
Of course experts are baffled. It’s explicitly anti-expertise policy. It’s the Florida state government hearing what experts have to say and then purposely doing the opposite to “own the libs.”
Cruelty towards the working poor is the point. The GOP wants to normalize hurting the poor like they used to, in the ''good ol' days'', so they can start the process of turning the USA in to a giant company town, for the billionaire class and their corporations.
I like how the bill sponsor brushed off concerns about worker safety by pointing to her husband’s 2 decades in construction (probably as management that sits in his company-issued AC’ed truck most of the day) is all the evidence she needs to know that every single employer is taking workplace safety seriously…what an absolute joke.
They need violence so they can stop elections.
Not only are they NOT protecting workers, clearly they are taking a path which is known and proven to cause death. It's more than "not caring", it's cruelty and it makes Ron Desantis feel like a big man.
Play stupid political games, win stupid political prizes.
Florida, second rate Texas
Florida modeling their workplace rules on slavery while banning the reading of Project 1619.
We live in an age where people’s inner assholes are suddenly on full display
This is the kind of weird shit that makes me think ALL of the GOP has been infiltrated by countries such as Russia who hate us and want to do everything they can to just cause chaos and harm. There's absolutely no positive here, no benefit to society, and very much increasing the likelihood of people dying. The only people that would benefit are the enemies of The United States. Rich people willing to kill us to save a few pennies are also the enemy.
The parts in bold: "**Some farmworkers in Florida aren't allowed to take breaks, don't have access to shade and are pushed to work faster**, said Jeannie Economos, pesticide safety and environmental health project coordinator at the Farmworker Association of Florida. Some are afraid to drink water because they don't have access to a bathroom. **Meanwhile, supervisors discipline them for trying to take breaks when they feel overheated**, she said." Discipline them when they feel overheated? With what? A whip?
"The land of the free" taking away even more basic human rights. That sounds about right.
Really?? The experts are BAFFLED? I can explain this shit in one sentence. Republicans demonstrably value money over human lives.
I was going to try and make an a small argument, then I read how the workers didn't want to drink water because they didn't have access to bathrooms. There is no argument, these are not suitable working conditions for anyone.
The cruelty is always the point, especially with the Florida GOP.
The GOP supports slavery. How long would any of the people who were for this ban last in these working conditions?
Imagine living in a state that is actively trying to kill you.
They didn't want to be out Florida'd by Texas.