Florida baffles experts by banning local water break rules as deadly heat is on the rise

MicroWave@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 442 points – Florida baffles experts by banning local water break rules as deadly heat is on the rise
usatoday.com

Sweltering summer heat might have been more bearable for outdoor workers in Miami-Dade County under a proposal that suggested mandated breaks in the shade on the hottest days – but Florida said no.

The county's proposal to establish heat rules for workers has been preempted by a new law: Florida has joined Texas in banning such local rules for outdoor workers. Meanwhile, California, Colorado, Minnesota, Oregon and Washington have passed laws giving more protections to construction workers who work in extreme heat.

Florida's new law has frustrated and angered some experts and advocates for construction workers and farmworkers. As summers get hotter over the years, outdoor workers will need more protections, not fewer, said Luigi Guadarrama, political director of Sierra Club Florida said.

The law will primarily affect low-income workers of color, Guadarrama said: “Currently, the state legislature has no interest in protecting workers."

Other advocates also say more protections for outdoor workers are needed.

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What the fuck do people not understand? This is really fucking simple: repubs will extract as much value for themselves from society, while they’re alive, with not a concern for the costs to others or the future. That’s what motivates 100% of their shit. That’s why they’ve betrayed America. That’s why they’re cool if kids get shot up. They’re soulless ghouls, utter parasites.

You won o' them soshsalisss?! Probably drink the soys and like the boys! Hyuk hyuk! Nah look out Imma git my aircraft-carrier-sized pickup an go buy me som ammanishin!

Srs tho every republican who gets heat stroke as a result of this unconscionable law will 100% absolutely not investigate their beliefs. Because their beliefs have 100% nothing to do with it.

Unions are the answer to this #GOP madness.

DeSantis is hoping to ban those too, I'm sure.

Funny story…

https://www.wlrn.org/wlrn-investigations/2024-02-15/florida-labor-union-membership-teachers-public-sb-256

In St. Johns County, on the Atlantic shore of Northeast Florida, more than 55% of public school teachers paid their union dues this last year. Despite that, nearly 3,500 teachers are facing the threat of having their union representation revoked. At the same time, in Southwest Florida, only 16% of law enforcement officers of the Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office paid union dues last year. Their union is under absolutely no threat of being decertified.

As always, ACAB.

And an additional WTF for DuhSantis' utter stupidity.

Police unions aren't labor unions because police aren't labor. Instead, they're the enforcers for the ruling class.

Labor unions are good and valid. Police unions are not.

Not even businesses want this, it's just performative cruelty at this point.

Businesses can still follow safety procedures, they just aren’t required to by law.

Often businesses like regulations because then they don't have the pressure of a race to the bottom. Depends on the industry and the regulation obviously

I'm not baffled. Republicans love to punish people, the poorer and not white the better.

Are the experts actually baffled? Have they not noticed who is running Florida?

It's USA Today.

So.

Not, like, . . . hard-hitting journalism there.

"Experts disappointed but not surprised" has too many polysyllable words for a headline.

Because most outdoor laborers are immigrants or illegal immigrants. Making that job more difficult is a oloy to get them to leave the state. Half of Miami doesn't even speak English, half of my family doesn't either.... But DeSantis just sees us all as "brown" and wants to show he's strong on immigration by forcing them to stop working and go elsewhere.

This goes for farm hands, other manual laborers too.

It's just cruel when you come down to It.

The South being The South yet again. Certain folks just can't achieve orgasm unless they first work a brown person to death and reap economic gain from it.

I can pretty much guarantee illegals don't get worker protections so the law saying one thing or another really doesn't matter.

Businesses can ignore most laws by default until someone sues them. This just removes the lawsuit for this specific thing. Work or die is the law.

The law will primarily affect low-income workers of color

I guess the experts missed the point.

While it's coming across as active cruelty, what this really is, is collateral damage, and TBF maybe there's no real difference. Many municipalities in Florida and Texas skew more blue than the state government, and they had taken to trying to use municipal codes to make life less shitty in general for everyone. Many had stricter COVID rules, have tried banning fracking, have decriminalized marijuana possession, have de-emphasized immigration enforcement, and a dozen other little ways to take the sting out of these state governments' obsession with making everyone live in some sort of Orwellian take on Mayberry.

If cities can enforce water breaks, they can enforce all kinds of things that make life more expensive for rich people and/or potentially more mildly uncomfortable for Evangelical assholes.

Democratic leaders in Florida are unsurprised by the new law. Rep. Fentrice Driskell, minority leader of the Florida House of Representatives, said Republicans in red states have systematically been taking power away from local governments as part of an effort to limit the influence of left-leaning cities.

Yup, Florida pulled a similar stunt before. Orange County Florida (location of Disney) got the signatures to put mandatory paid sick leave on the ballot, but the county commissioners delayed it long enough for the state government to kill it. Here's an article that goes into more detail on the bullshit pulled that time.

Yeah, I was born in Orange County, and lived in NE Florida for most of my childhood and college years. Well, north central Florida for the college years I guess, but we still got Jags games.

I was also born in Orange county, and grew up in Osceola. We got Bucs games. I moved to Minnesota for college (or rather I used college as an easy way to escape Florida), definitely a downgrade on the football team but at least they're not the Jags, lol.

Do you want your workforce to leave your state? Because that's how you get your workforce to leave your state. This is insane.

I still remember Florida having to scramble to get their migrant workers back after shitting on them repeatedly. Now that they have them back they can't resist but to blast those poor workers with more of their dehumanizing legislation

almost like the republiQan party is made up of selfish greedy assholes.

If only. They said the people affected the most will be poor people. Poor people cannot just up and leave.

It's only baffling because of projection.

We all understand others in large part by projection. What's happening here is decent people are projecting their sense of empathy onto people that do not have the capacity to experience it and being surprised. We need to get it into our heads that these people are not going to see the error in their ways and change. We have to remove them power somehow.

We normally talk about projection when right wingers project their fears, ignorance, and crime onto people not in their in-group but that isn't the only place it exists.

It's exactly this. Conservatives have a different brain structures that prevents them from learning empathy in a deep sense. They know they are being cruel but can't imagine what it would like to be in those peoples' shoes and so they don't care.

What a garbage state. And that really means something coming from someone that lives in Indiana

Florida has joined Texas in banning such local rules for outdoor workers

How is it every time i hear humans rights being restricted or taken away Texas is always fucking involved?

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Man Alabama's been practically righteous lately compared to Arkansas and Tennessee. Oh, and Mississippi. And Louisiana.

We're gonna need a bigger meme.

Are there any NGO's that are supporting / helping relocate impacted Floridian immigrant workers to more friendly agriculture states like California? Florida is increasingly proving that the cruelty is the point.

They’re in favor of local government, but not if the local government doesn’t tow the party line.

I hate to see articles like this one. It's way more fun when these cap-pilled, golden-calf-faith-based articles make up crazy reasons or blames millennials/zoomers. Give me a funny reason! Give me comedy! Pretending one just doesnt understand what purpose unfettered, unrestricted capitalism has as its end game is just lazy. Cmon USAtoday, you used to have standards

Sorry, children working in factories and doing hard labor outdoors, but we simply can't allow you to have food, water, or access to a toilet. What does this look like, a first world country?

Yeah....I'm not waiting for a mandated break. If I am getting too hot, I am walking to the shade for a quick drink. The problem is that Florida heat is wet heat. Shade doesn't do much.

If you need to piss urgently, do you politely wiggle, or do you step away and come back in 2 minutes?