DeSantis To Florida Outdoor Workers: Drop Dead

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation banning
municipalities from enacting regulations that would
give outdoor workers necessary things like
shade breaks and cool water during hot weather.
The cruelty is the point, apparently. 

 You might have seen a headline I wrote back on March 7 that looks about the same as the one on this post. 

You'd remember correctly. I wrote, "Florida Republicans To Outdoor Workers: Drop Dead."  That's because Republicans were working on legislation that would ban Florida towns and cities from enacting ordinances that protect outdoor workers from excessive heat and humidity. 

Well, Republicans passed the measure and Florida Gov Ron DeSantis just signed the measure. 

The ban on protecting workers from dangerous heat in one of the hottest states in the nation was in response to worker heat regulations under consideration in Miami-Dade County. It was the only one of Florida's 66 counties considering heat protection rules for outdoor workers. 

DeSantis said the statewide ban on heat regulations came from opponents of such rules in Miami-Dade. DeSantis added the heat rule there "was going to cause a lot of problems down there."  He did not specify what those problems would be. 

My suspicions are that part of the reason DeSantis and his minions don't want to see heat safety regulations is that many outdoor workers are Hispanic, and there a number of migrants among that group. 

You have to be as cruel to non-whites as possible to be a Republican in good standing these days.

The actual talking point has been that business can't afford to deal heat regulations that vary from town to town across Florida.

As Florida Politics reported:

"'Running a small business is never easy, but it's even harder when owners have to contend with a patchwork of local and sometimes contradictory rules and regulations,' said Bill Herbie, National Federation of Independent Business Florida state director, in a written statement supporting the bill signing."

The obvious solution to that problem would be to enact a statewide worker heat protection law, but tellingly, Florida's Republican-led legislature, and DeSantis, never introduced or supported such a law.  There was vague talk of looking at such regulations in 2028.  Even if they were being honest, why wait?

Frustratingly, I can't find any news articles in which reporters pressed lawmakers on why statewide heat regulations are a bad idea, other than business groups oppose them. I guess they think heat regulations would save them money, which of course is way, way more important than workers' lives in their minds. 

I'm also not sure how risking workers' lives in hot weather is a smart business plan, but what do I know? I guess the cruelty is the point.

There's evidence that heat regulations can actually save businesses money. Some states and munipalites have heat safety regulations.  As NPR reports:

"California was the first to establish regulations in 2006. They require employers to provide shade, rest breaks, and access to cool, clean water for outdoor workers. After the rules were implemented, heat-related workers compensation claims dropped, according to a 2021 study from UCLA."

In any event, labor groups were understandably livid at this Florida bill signing.

"'It's no surprise that Gov. DeSantis signed this cruel and terrible bill late at night; that's what you do when you're embarrassed about what you're signing,' said Jessica E. Martinez, co-executive director of the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health, a labor-oriented organization," reported islandernews.com  

The federal government has a general rule that workplaces should be "free from recognized hazards that are causing or likely to cause death or serious physical harm," but nothing specific on heat. So federal regulations are no help.  Congress could enact nationwide heat safety laws, but I don't see that coming any time in the near or distant future.

Texas last year also enacted rules preventing municipalities from instituting heat protection for workers. Same arguments.

Florida and Texas seem determined to torture outdoor workers via hot weather even as heat waves worsen as climate change escalates.  Other states, learning lessons from those climate fueled heat waves, are moving in the opposite direction. 

 After extreme, record-shattering heat in 2021 that caused several deaths, Washington and Oregon instituted hot weather protections for outdoor workers. 

It looks like there will be a patchwork of regulations that business lobbying groups say they oppose. Some states, like Texas and Florida, will just regard workers who die of heat stroke just dumb machinery that broke.

Other states, like California, will regard outdoor workers as, well, human beings. Different regulations will probably be introduced in other states, some humane, some not. 

And in the not-so-humane states, some of the people out in the hot sun picking your tomatoes and building your silly resort hotels, and landscaping those resorts will get sick and or die, because providing shade breaks and cool water is just way to "woke" to consider, apparently.