Dozens of outdoor workers die every year in the state of Florida due to the heat, but that fact didn’t stop lawmakers in the state from passing legislation that actually BANS mandatory water breaks for workers. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Mike Papantonio: Dozens of outdoor workers die every year in the state of Florida due to heat. But the fact didn’t stop lawmakers in from passing legislation that actually bans mandatory water breaks for workers. I’ve got Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins with me to talk about this. Farron, you’re gonna have to take this story because I read it and I swear I’m not joking, I thought that this was Onion. I thought that this was some type of comedy story, some Onion story where they’re trying to say, has it really gotten that crazy? Talk about this.
Farron Cousins: Unfortunately, it really has gotten that crazy here in the state of Florida, because yeah, the state legislature, the state House, state Senate worked together and passed this legislation saying that we are going to ban any city, or locale, municipality, whatever it is, you cannot enact any law that says your outdoor workers have to have mandatory water and rest breaks, which means mandatory breaks in the state of Florida for these outdoor workers are officially illegal. You cannot mandate those breaks in the state.
Mike Papantonio: In other words, you would’ve counties that would say, look, you’ve got workers coming in and they’re picking citrus. They gotta have so much time because it’s 120 degrees in those fields or wherever it might be, picking strawberries, construction workers on top of houses, putting on roofs.
Farron Cousins: And it has to vary county by county, especially here in Florida, because we do have such wild weather, depending on where you are in the state, we’re very different.
Mike Papantonio: I really, I’m serious when I tell you that when I read this, I couldn’t make sense of it. That’s how bizarre this is to me. Can you make sense of it?
Farron Cousins: No. And that is what is confusing about it is what’s the motivation behind this?
Mike Papantonio: Texas did it.
Farron Cousins: I know and Texas is almost even worse than Florida in terms of working outdoors in the heat. The only thing I can come to the conclusion of is that this is a group of individuals who passed this bill that have never actually had to work outside in the state of Florida, other than maybe cutting their own grass every couple of weeks. They’re not people that have actually gone out and done the work. And to be honest, I think that is a big problem with politics in general, whether it’s local, state, federal level, is we need more people that have actually gone out there and worked manual labor jobs. We need people that understand what it’s like to struggle and can bring that experience to politics. Because if you’ve never experienced it, you can’t appreciate it and understand it. And that’s what’s happening.
Mike Papantonio: It’s bigger than that to me. It’s bigger than that to me, Farron. Who would say, I’m gonna put my name on this? I’m gonna vote for this? You understand, it’s that you’re saying you cannot take a break in 120 degree heat, working on top of a roof. You can’t have a special cooling break. Now, here’s the real problem. The real problem is that administration after administration has been telling OSHA, do something about this kind of thing. You can do it. If you’re OSHA, you can come up and this has been kicking around for what, three presidents, where three presidents have been saying if you don’t get OSHA to do their job, because now they’re owned by corporations, you know. I mean, corporations own OSHA. OSHA is useless. But they would at least say to these folks at OSHA, come up with some standards that you can enforce. Right now, there are no standards. So it allows these folks to write this kind of legislation. Right?
Farron Cousins: Yeah. And in their legislation, I will say that they do point out like, hey, we’re gonna defer, follow the federal regulations on this. But they added that knowing there’s no federal regulations on this. So they did kind of put that in there as kind of a cover yourself moment, like, we’re gonna let the federal government handle this. And then the federal government says, well, we asked them, they’ve done nothing.
Mike Papantonio: 34 people a year die just in Florida from heat strokes related to this kinda stuff. And even in light of that, they go forward with this legislation. I just, some stories. You’ve been doing this with me for 25 years and some stories I just can’t get my arms around. This is one of ’em. I just, there must be some more to this story that I’m missing. Is there?
Farron Cousins: Not that I’ve seen. Eventually we’ll probably see once the quarterly spending reports come out, we’ll see how much these corporations gave and to whom they gave it to. And that’ll tell us a lot.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. The only good news is it’s unconstitutional. The health, safety and welfare is gonna be a good argument on this case from the constitutional standpoint.
Farron Cousins: Ring of Fire founder and host of America’s Lawyer, Mike Papantonio has a new book came out this week called, “Suspicious Activity.” Like his other books before it, this book actually deals with real legal cases that Mike Papantonio has handled, but in a fictionalized way. The book follows the character of Nick Deketomis that Papantonio first introduced in his book, “Law and Disorder,” and it carries on the story that began in “Law and Disorder” through “Law and Vengeance,” “Law and Addiction,” “Inhuman Trafficking,” and now “Suspicious Activity.” This book, in particular, deals with the financial institutions that have helped launder money for terrorist organizations, which of course is a topic we have covered extensively here on Ring of Fire. So if you’re a follower of Mike Papantonio’s books, or if this is your first one, you can get your copy of “Suspicious Activity” now. Just go to MikePapantonio.com and place your order. And if you haven’t already, check out Mike’s other books, also available on MikePapantonio.com.
