‘What are we doing?’: Biden slams state for cutting water break laws
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Thursday criticized Texas Republicans, including Gov. Greg Abbott, for passing a law that prohibits local rules requiring water breaks for construction workers during a weekslong heat wave.
“What are we doing here?” Biden said during a White House event with San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg in which the president said he will begin calling out states “where they refuse to protect these workers in this awful heat.”
“The idea that you can’t have mandatory water breaks when you work on construction — hell, when I played football, if you had a coach who would during summer practice didn’t provide water on a regular basis, he got in trouble, got fired,” Biden said.
Abbott’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Biden has been under growing pressure from Texas Democrats to step in before a new state law takes effect in September that will eliminate city ordinances requiring water breaks for construction workers — nearly 40 percent of whom say they are not given regular breaks on job sites, even in the heat of the summer, according to surveys by the Workers Defense Project.
The law, deemed the “Death Star” by its opponents, stops cities and counties from “regulating conduct” in areas already covered by state law, including labor. It would override water break requirements in Austin and Dallas, and preempt similar rules that San Antonio has been working to establish, as well. Houston officials earlier this month filed a lawsuit to stop the law.
On Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Greg Casar, an Austin Democrat whose district stretches to San Antonio, held a “thirst strike” on the steps of the U.S. Capitol to protest the law by fasting for eight hours. Casar also led more than 100 Democrats, including several Texans, in a letter calling for the Biden administration to speed up workplace heat standards that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is drafting.
Biden on Thursday announced he is directing the Department of Labor to increase inspections of potentially dangerous workplaces such as farms and construction sites. As part of the initiative, the department will issue a hazard alert notifying employers and employees about ways to stay protected from extreme heat. The administration also plans to spend $7 million to develop more detailed weather predictions to anticipate extreme weather like heat waves.