I’m trying to understand what the point is beyond just cruelty. I mean office workers here in Canada are at least given 2x 15 min coffee breaks paid, and a 30 min unpaid lunch at a minimum. So that works out to a break every 2 hrs for a beverage and a toilet break. So folks working out in the direct sun can’t even have a law mandating 10 min water break after 4 hours? Generally speaking, I like to hear the rationales behind laws before reacting because they often do get spun or twisted by opposers. But this one I really have to stretch my imagination on what the motivation would be. Beyond “f&*k those guys in particular!”
Much like Detroit’s rich white Detroit-hating suburbs - 'burbs which wouldn’t even exist w/out Detroit! - whose snobby asshole inhabitants have to go to Detroit for events of any size…
Supporters of the law have said it will eliminate a patchwork of local ordinances across the state that bog down businesses.
(from the article linked in the OP)
And:
“We did across-the-board regulatory preemption so that local governments — the city of Austin, for example — are not going to be able to micromanage businesses in the state of Texas, especially driving up the costs for local businesses,” Abbott said. “We are going to have one regulatory regime across the entire state on massive subject areas that will make the cost of business even lower, the ease of business even better.”
from here:
There’s a fig-leaf claim that there’s no need for local rules because site/worker safety is already covered by the OHSA but both articles set out fairly clearly why that’s rubbish.
There’s also the fact that two bills were introduced to try to replace the local rules with a statewide one which you would have thought would go somewhere given that’s the stated aim but in a shocking twist both bills failed to pass.
The emerald mine was in Zambia, not South Africa. I’ve read that Zambian miners have astonished Chinese mining companies by engaging in insubordinate behaviour such as taking tea breaks and going home at the end of their shifts.
Shocking, indeed.
Such a farce. If that were truly their goal, nothing precluded setting up the replacements as triggers that, upon passing, phased out the local rules. There was no benevolent reason to leave the workers unprotected for any time.
Texas should be regarded as a christofascist kleptocracy; it has long been an oligarchy, as an earlier boingboing article points out:
“Kel Seliger, a longtime Republican state senator from Amarillo who has clashed with the billionaires, said their influence has made Austin feel a little like Moscow. ‘It is a Russian-style oligarchy, pure and simple,’ Seliger said. 'Really, really wealthy people who are willing to spend a lot of money to get policy made the way they want it — and they get it…”
It’s not for nothing that I refer to the Texas Legislature as the Politboro… and Abbott as the Czar.
Some have objected to my characterization of the Light Governor, even though the moniker fits… and everyone knows about the deeply corrupt Attorney General.
And the state has seen fit to take over the largest school district in Texas, on the flimsiest of pretexts… and has put in place machinery to overturn elections in Houston, as well. Not to mention the anti-trans & anti-abortion laws…
“Breakin’ rocks in the hot sun; I fucked around, and found out.” 
