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Despite record rainfall this month, Austin will again approach triple-digit days next week as hotter summers become the norm in Central Texas. As heat-related illnesses have increased, the Austin-Travis County Public Health Commission is weighing an incentive program aimed at keeping outdoor workers safe in extreme heat.
Under the current proposal, participating employers would give outdoor workers 10-minute water breaks every three hours from May through September. In exchange, the city would give those employers city discounts on waste disposal, as well as on residential and commercial construction permits. The commission is poised to recommend the proposal to the Austin City Council at its August 6 meeting. The Austin City Council could take it up after that meeting — or even sooner.
The proposed voluntary, incentivized approach to the problem became necessary after the Texas Legislature banned local governments from mandating worker breaks in 2023 (HB 2127), despite increasing heat-related health problems.
Austin-Travis County EMS call data obtained by Austin Free Press show almost 4,000 heat-related incidents from 2005 to 2020 in Travis County. The vast majority of these incidents occur during scorching afternoons in the summer months. Those data do not specify how many of the calls were made on behalf of outdoor workers.
In 2024, EMS logged a 90 percent increase over the previous year in its responses to heat-related calls, KUT reported.
The Legislature’s 2023 ban on mandated worker breaks nullified Austin’s 2010 city regulations that required employers to offer construction workers breaks. The health commission proposal for a voluntary, incentive program sidesteps state prohibitions on mandated water breaks.
“We applaud Austin’s public health commission,” said Daniela Silva of the Workers Defense Action Fund, which advocates for workplace protections for immigrant construction workers. “We hope that the council adopts this recommendation, further standardizing this essential practice.”
The Workers Defense Action Fund and Travis County have been partnering on a similar initiative — the Better Builder program — since 2018. It offers construction companies expedited building-plan reviews if they offer their workers protections, including 10-minute rest breaks for every four hours of work, regardless of temperature. At least 79 workplaces in Travis County – and another 55 in Austin city limits – have participated in the program, according to Better Builder Director Chidi Umez-Rowly.
Nonetheless, union leaders say that such voluntary proposals are not sufficient.
“We want it mandatory,” said Matt Gonzalez, who is on the board of Local 1095 of the Laborers’ International Union of North America, which represents construction workers in Austin and San Antonio. “We want all contractors to be playing by the same set of rules.”
Gonzalez said that the industry’s worst offenders typically don’t participate in voluntary programs. By contrast, a requirement “levels the playing field for good contractors because now you are establishing a bar that all companies should meet,” he said. Austin’s proposal “does nothing to hold bad actors accountable.”
The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which regulates worker conditions, also has been drafting rules that would require employers nationwide to offer workers water and shade breaks under certain heat conditions. The agency wrapped up a series of public hearings on the proposed rules on July 2. A national heat standard would override state and local ordinances.
OSHA’s current draft would require employers to provide cool water, shade, and indoor break areas with fans or air conditioning when the heat index reaches 80 degrees. Paid rest breaks would be offered “if needed.” Employers would have to let new employees work shorter days initially to “acclimatize” to the heat.
A heat index of at least 90 degrees would trigger mandatory 15-minute rest breaks every two hours and a buddy system where workers monitor each other for overheating. All employers would be required to have a heat-safety coordinator and protocols to prevent heat illnesses.
The proposed rules would apply to both indoor and outdoor workers.
Palmer Logistics President Brett Mears owns warehouses across the Houston area. He told OSHA officials in June that the proposed rules are “severely flawed.” OSHA’s 80-degree threshold is too low for Texas, where he said such conditions are considered “mild.”
“This forces workers to follow OSHA’s schedule instead of trusting their ability to listen to their own bodies and respond to the conditions that they are facing,” Mears testified virtually at a June 23 OSHA hearing. “This overly prescriptive approach would severely disrupt operations that rely on fewer workers, disproportionately affecting smaller businesses.”
Mears said that his facilities already provide hydration stations and more breaks during hotter months.
Ted Maple, a member of Communication Workers of America Local 7019, disagreed. He argued that formal rules protect workers who are afraid to speak up. “Too often there’s pressure to finish quickly,” Maple testified to OSHA. “Even when we’re told we could ask for more time most of us don’t because the culture doesn’t make it feel safe to do so and agents are afraid of retaliation.”
“We’re not asking for anything unreasonable,” Maple said. “We just want to do our jobs and go home safe to our families at the end of the night. This proposed standard can help make this a reality and (it’s) long overdue.”
OSHA concluded public hearings on this subject as part of its ongoing rulemaking process. Individuals who submitted notices of intent to appear at the informal public hearing can participate in a post-hearing comment period through September 30.
“We need to ensure that the same men and women that build our communities have an opportunity to prosper in them,” said Gonzalez of the Laborers’ International Union. “If going home safe at the end of the workday to their families that depend on them is prosperous, then that’s a win.”
Sara Willa Ernst is a freelance writer based in Austin. Before that, she was the health reporter at the NPR station in Houston. Her radio stories have aired on shows like NPR’s All Things Considered, Weekend Edition, The Texas Standard and WHYY’s The Pulse. She has reported and produced two podcasts “Hot Stops” and “Below the Waterlines.” The latter won her two regional Murrow awards in 2023.
