U.S. CAPITAL ~ Many Texans who work in the construction industry, airport baggage handling, postal service, and other outside jobs converged on Capitol Hill on Tuesday. They called it “a vigil and thirst strike” in opposition to a law recently approved by Texas Governor Greg Abbott that does away with required water breaks for construction workers. At least 13 people in Texas died from the heat in the same month that the Republican governor signed House Bill 2127, sometimes known as the Texas Regulatory Consistency Act but called the “Death Star” by detractors. According to a fact sheet promoting the proposition, its backers in the business and construction industries wanted to replace “the regulatory patchwork” of local regulations with a “single set of predictable, consistent regulations” for the entire state. That means local protections against high heat, including water break regulations, would be pushed back, and cities would lose the power to enforce local ordinances relating to agriculture, natural resources, finance, and labor.
About 30 protesters, sweating and squinting in the early afternoon sun, held banners reading “Working Shouldn’t Be a Death Sentence,” “Water Breaks = Basic Right,” and “People Over Profits.” The heat index reached 91 degrees in the nation’s capital. However, the misery of workers in their own state, where temperatures had reached triple digits, was the main focus of the demonstrators. To prevent heat-related illnesses and deaths in the workplace, more than a hundred U.S. lawmakers, including this week’s protest organizer, Texas Democrat Rep. Greg Casar, have signed a letter to acting Labor Secretary Julie Su. Casar and the other members of the group, which included La Unión del Pueblo Entero members from San Juan, Texas, and civil rights activist Dolores Huerta, fasted from 10:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. to show support for the tens of thousands of Texans who work outside and to urge the federal government to overturn Abbott’s law. “The baseline of what our democracy should be able to do is the right to a water break,” Casar said, perspiration beading on his forehead, “and the right to go to work and know that working is not a death sentence.”
Huerta, 93, who helped found organizations like La Unión alongside legendary labor activist Cesar Chávez, reminded the crowd that in the 1960s, farmworkers in California went on strike due to poor and dangerous working conditions such as a lack of job security, bathroom access, and water during the day. “This is such a cruel thing,” Huerta cried out. Many members of Congress stopped by to show their support for the rally, including New York’s House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and other prominent progressives like Vermont’s independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, New York’s Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and other members of “The Squad,” a caucus of liberal House Democrats. Democratic Senatorial Candidate Katie Porter and Representative Ro Khanna both made appearances in California, another state suffering under a heat wave.
There are laws in place to shield workers in regions like California from dangerously high temperatures. She stressed the importance of keeping hydrated by drinking plenty of water when spending time outside in the heat. She spoke to the body’s natural mechanism to cool itself down, saying that patients often feel weak and faint and lose blood flow. Water should be consumed before to the onset of these symptoms. “When you’re thirsty, then you’re already farther down the line of dehydration,” Critendon added, elaborating on the importance of frequent water breaks for outdoor workers. In order to avoid dehydration, “you can’t really wait until your body says, ‘Oh, I’m thirsty,’ because by that time it’s already late.” La Unión del Pueblo Entero’s president and executive director, Tania Chavez Camacho, joined the hunger and thirst strike for the entire day. Originally formed to defend the rights of migrant farmworkers in South Texas, the organization has now broadened its membership to include other industries, such as construction.
