Construction workers in Texas endure extreme heat wave conditions without proper breaks and hydration

Perched on a platform to paint a 10 meter high wall in the intense Texas heat, Maynor Alvarez suddenly felt feverish with an urge to vomit. He wanted to go back down but his foreman ordered him to “keep producing”.

The heat wave that has been raging for nearly a month in the southern United States is hitting construction workers hard, who are exposed to temperatures above 40°C.

And it should not get any better: record temperatures are expected this weekend, including 46°C on Saturday in Corpus Christi, in southern Texas.

“I’ve suffered from heatstroke before. And you know what it feels like? Cramps in my legs and arms, headaches, feeling sick and heart palpitations,” says Maynor Alvarez, a house painter from of Guatemalan origin, during a demonstration on Friday near City Hall in Houston, the big city in southern Texas.

But, adds this 42-year-old worker, “when I complain to my supervisor, who is downstairs, he tells me to keep working (…) I’m going down because I can’t take it anymore (…) If I had stayed five more minutes, I wouldn’t be here to tell you about it.”

Protesters are opposing a recent law approved by Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott that calls into question the right of construction workers in cities like Dallas or Austin to take a hydration break every four hours.

“A law that kills”

The law, which is due to come into effect in September, does not ban these hydration breaks but intends to harmonize regulations at the state level on a range of topics related to labor law or agriculture, rather than leaving the municipalities, usually Democrats, legislate on the subject. And this, in the name of freedom of enterprise.

“It’s a law that kills,” said Maynor Alvarez for his part.

Twenty miles further north, Juan, a 28-year-old Mexican who prefers not to give his last name, is standing on a ladder finishing work on the wall of a building under construction.

The perceived temperature exceeds 40°C and the sun is blinding.

Wearing a helmet, and wearing a vest and goggles, he wrapped his head in a sort of scarf to protect his neck from the sun’s rays.

“When I only drink water, I get dizzy, I feel like throwing up from the heat, I need something else, a Coke, a Gatorade, and cold, to be able to function properly. The hottest period of the day is between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. “, he explains to AFP.

His colleague Edwin, 21 and also Mexican, returns with a hydrating drink. “I’m almost used to it, but this year the heat is stronger,” he said.

“Senseless”

Maynor Alvarez says, however, that it is impossible to complain, under penalty of not being paid full time or being refused work.

At the rally in Houston, Luz Martinez, also a construction worker, recounts how she had to work in a 20-story building where workers had to go downstairs to drink outside.

“On July 4, a public holiday (in the United States), we were renovating a school, in an enclosed space, without air conditioning because there are some who do not want to pay for electricity”, she explains, remembering ‘a colleague who felt unwell.

“We are dying. Depriving ourselves of water, of breaks to hydrate us, is not fair,” she adds.

The workers mourn the death of a 46-year-old colleague in mid-June, Felipe Pascual, on a construction site in the suburbs of Houston.

Texas is the state with the most heat-related deaths in the building sector: 42 between 2011 and 2021, according to official figures from the Texas chapter of the AFL-CIO union.

“It is not always possible to be in the shade, we are construction workers. Having these breaks and drinking water is essential to continue,” union representative Cristian Canela told AFP. local house painters, which denounces a “senseless” law.

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