NEWS: Congressman Greg Casar Hosts Vigil & Thirst Strike for Workers’ Rights on House Steps

WASHINGTON – Today, Congressman Greg Casar (D-Texas) is hosting a Vigil and Thirst Strike for Workers’ Rights on the steps of the U.S. Capitol to draw attention to the need for a federal workplace heat standard, including protections for rest and water breaks. During the event, Casar will be participating in an all-day hunger and thirst strike – meaning no water, no food, and no break, until nurses require him to stop.

“I’m on thirst strike today because families across Texas and across America deserve dignity on the job. But Greg Abbott doesn’t think so. During this heat wave, the Governor just signed a law taking away your right to a water break at work. It’s an outrageous attack on Texans – and threatens all workers,” said Greg Casar (D-Texas). “The Biden Administration must step in, override Abbott, and ensure heat protections for all Americans in all industries. Our government should work for working people, not for greedy corporations that exploit their workers and fill Abbott’s campaign coffers.” 

The event follows a letter released on Monday, when Casarled a group of 110+ members of Congress calling on the Biden Administration to implement an Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) workplace heat standard as quickly as possible. The members urged the “fastest possible implementation… given the dire threat to the lives of workers exposed to extreme heat.”

OSHA currently has no rule requiring protection from extreme heat. 

In 2010 at the age of 21, Casar led a thirst strike on the steps of Austin City Hall with Workers Defense Project to call for rest and water break protections. Austin passed rest and water break protections that year. Casar thenhelped pass local rest and water break protections in Dallas in a multi-year campaign that culminated in 2015.

Over a third of Texas construction workers report not receiving water breaks on the job. Construction workers were 35% more likely to report receiving a rest break in Austin thanks to the city’s rest break ordinance. Multiple workers— from postal workers to electrical line workers— have died working in the Texas sun during this year’s heat wave.

The event comes just a few weeks prior to Texas House Bill 2127 becoming law, which will eliminate local protections against extreme heat, such as the Austin and Dallas ordinances that require water breaks for workers. While Texas state legislators are working to dismantle worker protections, some states such as California, Minnesota, Oregon, and Washington have taken a proactive approach to protecting workers from extreme heat by implementing statewide heat rules.

Organizations participating in the Vigil for Workers’ Rights: 
“Water breaks save lives,” said Krissy O’Brien with AFSCME Local 1624. “Congress must act with urgency to ensure enforceable safety protections for Texas workers.” 

"Rest and water breaks are not a luxury, they’re basic workers rights. That’s especially true as our climate crisis makes already hot days more extreme. What Governor Abbott is doing is inhuman, cruel, and it will kill people,” said Analilia Mejia, co-Executive Director of the Center for Popular Democracy. "President Biden must declare a climate emergency and direct the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to implement new rules protecting workers from extreme heat. Workers in Texas and across the country depend on it."

“Record breaking climate disasters are hitting workers and regular people every week now. These catastrophes have become far too normal. We need increased protections for every community, especially those on the frontlines of the crisis,” said Saul Levin, Legislative and Policy Director at the Green New Deal Network. “We are living in a climate emergency and President Biden must finalize a heat safety standard now as a bare minimum first step for saving lives.”

“Big corporations and their Republican lackeys are conspiring to strip away rights and protections from working families, all to pad their bottom line,” said Leah Greenberg, co-executive director of Indivisible. “But Rep. Casar and Democrats in the House and Senate are leading a necessary effort to protect workers from these attacks. It’s outrageous that we’d even need to talk about something as basic as a water break on a hot day, but that’s what Republicans like Greg Abbott are yanking away. Indivisible thanks Rep. Casar  for his leadership in fighting for a workplace heat standard, and we look forward to fighting alongside him to give workers the respect and basic dignity they deserve.”

“We are joining this thirst strike on behalf of working families in South Texas,” said Tania A. Chavez Camacho, executive director of La Unión del Pueblo Entero (LUPE). “While Gov. Abbott favors greedy businesses that want to exploit our people, border residents have been on the frontlines advocating against policies that put profits and politics over human life. Removing worker protections such as water breaks will put people at risk of death for simply doing their best to support their families and pay their bills. Construction workers and farm workers make up a big part of our LUPE membership, and we won’t stand for policies that put their lives in peril. Working Texans deserve better than this.”

“As registered nurses, we know that it’s essential for workers to have access to water, breaks, and other protective measures that can help shield them from the dangerous effects of heat-related illness, including death,” said Zenei Triunfo-Cortez, RN, President of National Nurses United. “Common-sense solutions like water break protections are critical to prevent workers from unnecessarily becoming our patients. National Nurses United is proud to stand in solidarity with Representative Casar and workers across Texas in fighting for the health and safety protections required to prevent heat-related illnesses on the job.”

“The Death Star bill could make some people go a whole day without water,” said Neil Norfleet, baggage assistant at Houston International Airport (IAH) and member of SEIU Texas. “I know there’s going to be heat stroke. I know there’s going to be death. We can’t let that happen.”

“Texas is the deadliest state for workers in construction. Instead of addressing this, Gov. Abbott has signed HB 2127 to further strip workers who must labor in intense heat of their hard fought, life saving protections”, said Leonard Aguilar, Secretary Treasurer of Texas AFL-CIO. “With workers dying because of extreme heat in Texas and across the US, it is past time for us to enact federal heat protections since Gov. Abbott continues to fail workers in our state. No worker deserves to die on the job." 

"As our world and our work places get hotter, worker protections are more critical than ever. We cannot live in a country where delivery and construction workers are at risk of heat stroke or death when they clock in for the day. President Biden must stand with workers and implement federal workplace heat standards -- anything less than that is unacceptable. We are in a climate emergency and he must act like it.” said Varshini Prakash, Executive Director of Sunrise Movement.

“Our governor's contempt toward everyday working communities is nothing new, but his callousness is reaching dangerous levels that will only result in more loss of life. For families like mine, this is a matter of life and death. Our livelihood is construction work. This is a worker rights matter. This is a human rights matter. This is an urgent matter,” said Lupita Lopez, a member of Texas Organizing Project (TOP) in Houston whose family works in the construction industry. “Each and every worker in our country — no matter their nationality, race, documentation status, or economic status — deserves a work environment that respects their basic health and wellbeing.” 

“From the deaths of Asuncion Valdivia in 2004 and Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez in 2008, to Florencio Gueta Vargas in 2021 and Efrain Lopez Garcia, who was killed by heat in Florida earlier this month; farm worker families have lost far too many loved ones to deadly temperatures – and to deadly government inaction,” said UFW President Teresa Romero. “OSHA must step up now to protect the men, women, and children who do the incredibly hard work of harvesting America’s food in truly dangerous temperatures – sacrificing their health and sometimes their lives to keep our nation fed. Farm workers need and deserve the access to shade, water, and breaks – the basic necessities for survival when working in deadly temperatures. OSHA must take action immediately to implement the permanent nationwide heat rules which have already been in development for years. Every day we wait, puts more farm worker lives at risk. How many more workers will we let heat and callous employers kill before this nation acts?”  

“Farm workers are at the frontlines of climate change as extreme heat continues to expose them to more danger,” said UFW Foundation Chief Executive Officer Diana Tellefson Torres. “We must prevent heat-related deaths and we can do so by establishing a permanent heat standard that provides workers access to shade, paid rest breaks, training, and water. The UFW Foundation stands with Congressman Casar today in demanding OSHA establish a permanent heat standard so that farm workers and other outside workers can have a safe work environment.”

“I am a longtime member of Workers Defense Project and am proud of the rest break ordinance we won for construction workers in Dallas back in 2015,” said Texas construction worker Marisol Gayosso, a Dallas member of Workers Defense Project. “But those protections that we fought so hard for will be ripped away from working Texans on Sept. 1 when HB 2127 takes effect. As a single mother who depended on construction work for 20 years to run a household alone, I have witnessed how each summer becomes more perilous for my co-workers. Workers are dying in 100-plus degree weather and the brutality of the climate crisis will only exasperate this reality. I stand united with Rep. Casar, Workers Defense, unions, and allies and call on President Biden to implement an OSHA workplace heat standard as soon as possible.”

Additional organizations will also be represented. 

A livestream of the event is available on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. 

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Congressman Greg Casar represents Texas’s 35th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives, which runs down I-35 from East Austin to Hays County to the West Side of San Antonio.  A labor organizer and son of Mexican immigrants, Casar serves as the Whip of the Congressional Progressive Caucus for the 118th Congress. He also serves on the Committee on Oversight and Accountability and the Committee on Agriculture.