Texas banning mandatory water breaks for construction workers

In September, a new law will take effect in Texas that will radically alter existing safety regulations at thousands of construction sites across the state. 

HB 2127, signed in June by Gov. Greg Abbott, bans local governments from passing laws that are stricter than state regulations in finance, insurance, labor, natural resources or occupations codes. The law was intended to prevent a patchwork of regulations from cropping up across the state, which lawmakers said causes problems for businesses working in more than one city. 

The regulation will nullify local laws, which were often passed as progressive initiatives that the state’s conservative legislature would not. In the Austin and Dallas construction worlds, the law will most noticeably remove local laws requiring periodic water breaks for construction workers throughout the day.

The ban on water breaks takes effect on Sept. 1, amid one of the hottest summers in Texas’ recorded history. The State of Texas doesn’t have any laws or regulation about water breaks for workers.

State Sen. Brandon Creighton, who sponsored the bill in the Senate, called it the “the most pro-business, pro-growth bill” of the session. 

“HB 2127 gives Texas job creators the certainty they need to invest and expand by providing statewide consistency and ending the days of activist local officials creating a patchwork of regulation outside their jurisdiction,” Creighton said in a statement. 

Some construction workers and trade groups take a different view. Eva Marroquin has worked in construction in Austin for over 20 years, and is a member of the Workers Defense Project, a construction worker advocacy group. She said rising temperatures have led to higher odds of heat illness or death in her line of work. 

“Having my rest breaks protected through the rest break ordinance we won back in 2010 in Austin has been life-saving,” she said. “When Governor Abbott signed HB 2127 into law back in June, he effectively signed a death warrant for working-class Texans like myself.”

Other construction leaders say they will still give their workers breaks regardless of the law. “I don’t care what the company says. My guy looks like he needs a break, he’s getting a break,” James Roosa, a foreman in Austin, told NPR this month. 

In June, a Fort Bend construction worker died after collapsing from heat exhaustion. 

Austin officials plan to focus on sharing more information from health experts with construction teams. 

“With the upcoming bill taking effect, the main shift is that we will be amplifying the heat safety messaging and education from our City partners,” said Isis Lopez, a spokesperson for the city of Austin’s development code compliance department.

Dallas passed its law mandating water breaks for construction workers in 2015, five years after Austin approved its own law. When the city was debating the measure, a third of its construction workers said they didn’t get rest breaks at work, according to a presentation shared with the council. Two thirds said their employer didn’t provide them with water, and 12 percent said they had seen a co-worker faint from heat exhaustion on the job. 

The city downplayed the potential annoyance to construction companies that mandatory breaks might cause, noting that a majority of them already gave their workforce breaks. 

In 2018, researchers with Louisiana State University and the Workers Defense Project published a study examining the efficacy of Austin’s mandatory water breaks law. The city’s construction workers were 35 percent more likely to say they had taken a rest break after the city passed its mandate. 

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As the state preempts local governments, the federal government is considering overruling both. U.S. Rep. Greg Casar, a Democrat from Austin who helped pass the city’s water breaks mandate, has begun lobbying the Biden administration to pass federal rules ensuring breaks nationwide. 

In July, Casar held a “thirst strike” on the steps of the U.S. Capitol Building. He also sent a letter signed by over 100 members of the House and Senate to the White House asking it to fast-track heat protection rules.

Later that month, President Biden gave a speech about the issue of heat at the workplace, calling a lack of water breaks for construction workers “outrageous.”

“Hell, when I played football, if you had a coach who, during summer practice, didn’t provide water on a regular basis, he got fired,” Biden said in the speech. “I mean, what are we doing here?”