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[–] 88 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Come fucking on. We know why. So they can use up workers like fucking snot rags. That's why. Because they are monsters in service of monsters.

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  • [–] 13 points 2 months ago

    Because providing shit like sheltered shade, AC, water breaks and the like costs the company a small fraction of their profit and that's anathema to The Line, which must constantly Go Up.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    We are born into a world correctly frightened of monsters and are made to feel silly upon inspection of our bed and closet only to find out later that the monsters have their own bed and closet and hide in plain sight.

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  • [–] 61 points 2 months ago* (1 child)

    Because they're evil?

    I'm not even joking: at this point, they're not even pretending to follow a political logic anymore. They're simply pursuing whatever hurts others for the sheer joy of it. I honestly can't find any other reason for anything they do.

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  • [–] 53 points 2 months ago

    Oh, I know this one! It’s because republicans are fucken scum!

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  • [–] 33 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    They love the concept of work, but they hate workers. It's always been like this.

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  • [–] 31 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    Because they are into soft eugenics. Rather than build death camps they just create conditions where minorities and the poor die.

    Same goes for their lack of action with Ebola outbreak

    Or their attempt to stop vaccinations.

    It’s eugenics without getting your hands dirty.

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  • [–] 28 points 2 months ago

    There's many correct answers to that question, see other comments. Just one that hasn't been mentioned yet:

    Because it will cost employers slightly less.

    Regulation is for pussies, gimme some real capitalism. Can't wait to get rich, lol.

    child labor

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  • [–] 21 points 2 months ago

    Gonna go with, "Uncontent with waiting for them to die from our unaffordable healthcare system and predatory insurance providers, they found a new bus to throw them under in the form of climate change." Only conclusion you can draw is they're polluting not as a necessary side effect of industry, but purposefully to kill us.

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  • [–] 17 points 2 months ago

    Why are Republicans

    Evil is as evil does.

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  • [–] 15 points 2 months ago

    because they're sociopaths?

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  • [–] 12 points 2 months ago

    The more poor slobs die from heat stroke, the less there will be to revolt when they're replaced by robots.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 months ago

    Because 👏 They're 👏 Evil 👏

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  • [–] 21 points 2 months ago* (3 children)

    There are many outrage responses here, e.g., because they're evil. The outrage is understandable, but simply ascribing this to evil isn't completely accurate or helpful beyond a little catharsis. There's logic to their actions, and they're making these choices because their donors value profit over the safety and quality of life of their employees. That's the evil. Let me explain the logic since it's one of my areas of expertise.

    Tl;dr: complying with reasonable regulations would be more expensive, and that expense will increase as climate change accelerates. Public knowledge of workplace heat safety is generally poor, humans are extremely heat adaptable, and regulations are vague, allowing for significant employer abuse.

    The Regulatory Landscape is a Desert
    Pun intended. 

    Federal OSHA regulations don't cover heat. Full stop. While OSHA has released guidance for working in high temperature conditions, it's entirely optional and unenforceable as no heat specific regulation exists. All enforcement falls under the General Duty Clause, which calls for employers to make a good-faith effort to provide a workplace free from recognized hazards that may cause death or serious injury. This vagueness is intended and actually beneficial as it acts as a catch-all for unregulated edge cases, but falls flat for more complex, consistent issues... like heat. This would be fine in a functional, rational government as the pertinent regulations would simply be added, but look where we're at. 2026. Yeah.

    "Heat" is Complex
    It often comes as a surprise to the sedantary American public, but humans handle working at high temperatures exceptionally well - more about that later. That same public is quite bad at understanding what constitutes "too hot" as the reality is complex. The best indicator is the wet-bulb globe temperature (WBGT), which accounts for air temperature, humidity, sun angle, cloud cover, air pressure, and wind, and can be adjusted for clothing/PPE type. Based on the intensity of work and environmental conditions, a crew could safely work at 110°F or more in one location but cap out at 75°F or less in another. 

    Humans are Great with Heat
    Humans are amongst the most heat adaptable animals on the planet. Reasonably physically fit people with appropriate clothing and PPE, unlimited cool water, a shaded or air conditioned rest area, two weeks of progressive acclimation, and sufficient rest breaks can perform 8-10 hour shifts doing even heavy physical labor in hot temperatures with a large safety margin of error. With the right PPE and controls (huge fuck off fans or, God forbid, AC), they can even be reasonably comfortable.

    Companies Maximize Profit Based on Human Adaptability and Regulatory Insufficiency
    Ideal safety regulations take into account the condition of the average worker, build in a significant margin of error, and plainly describe requirements. Employers would be held to a consistent standard based on metrics like WBGT, and as average WBGT increases, so would their expenses. Based on my industry experience, many employers are ignorant of industry best practices while others simply ignore them, so the cost to meet and maintain regulatory standards would be significant, particularly as the frequency of worker downtime should increase in conjunction with temperature - the thing that keeps going up every year.

    In our current, barren regulatory landscape, some employers avoid expense by employee self-selection, where those unable to handle the literal heat quit, and relying on plausible deniability and pleading ignorance in the event of an incident. OSHA fines have historically been fairly low, infrequent due to the lack of clear, specific regulation, and are increasingly less common as OSHA continues to lose funding and staffing over time despite a growing workforce. The math usually works in the employer's favor: those prone to injury tend to quit, those who remain can typically be pushed without injury beyond the conditions regulations would enforce, and the costs of heat-related illness and possible fines are often much less than a comprehensive, effective, and humane heat mitigation program.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago (1 child)

    What you're saying feels kind of circular. Regulations and their enforcement being lacking doesn't have any explanatory power for people's behaviour, when those same people are actively trying to prevent regulation from happening. To begin with, someone with a shred of morals wouldn't need regulations to try to minimise harm to their employees' health on the work floor.

    Also, lawmakers doing the bidding of evil people doesn't make the lawmakers any less evil; it's not as though their children are being held hostage or something.

    I'm not really seeing any logic that here doesn't ultimately boil down to "they're evil". Of course, being aware of the problems with current regulations is important and can lead to practical solutions that can improve people's lives and be implemented in the relatively short term, but focussing exclusively on that obscures the more fundamental problem: that our society is set up so that greedy, unempathetic bastards float to the top. And that too, requires a solution.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago

    I think my point didn't come across. I wasn't making a case that they're not evil, but instead that it's not pointless evil.

    There are a lot of "they're fighting regulation just to hurt and kill people" type comments. That's not true as there's no gain in doing so. These types of politicians exist to maximize the gain of their corporate donors, so they'd be wasting time and irritating their handlers.

    They're fighting heat regulations to save their donors a ton of money, and I outline why, how, and how the current system benefits them. They're evil, or more specifically heartless sociopaths, because they fight regulation despite knowing this will lead to easily prevented injuries and deaths.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 months ago*

    Because cruelty is the point, they will even put it above profit

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  • [–] 9 points 2 months ago

    I believe they literally want people to suffer, to toughen up the workforce for their corporate overlords.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 months ago

    Because they know they've been lying about climate change to keep feeding the oil oligarchy and now they need to protect the other oligarchs from the repercussions of their previous actions.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 months ago

    Because the climate change they deny will make it harder to comply w/o losing some pennies for the Epstein class.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 months ago

    Because Republicans feed on the suffering of others.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 months ago

    They yearn to see slaves sweating in the fields.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 months ago

    Because a lot of people think the value of private property far exceeds the value of human life, except their own.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 months ago

    Simple answer. The right people were sufficiently bribed.

    Having people killed by heat is cheaper than giving them AC, water, breaks, and other protection. Some of those potential savings went into the pockets of people in charge to buy this law.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 months ago

    Because they will use you up and replace you with someone else the minute you are no longer of use to them.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 months ago

    What part of "billionaires are actively trying to kill people off" do you not understand?

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

    "But workers possess a “degree of choice over where they live and work, what job they take and what shifts they agree to work”" [...] "they can “move or switch firms” if conditions are too onerous."

    How delusionaland and out of touch do you need to be to really believe this ?

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago

    Because its expensive to provide heat relief after you've set the world on fire?

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago

    TheWeek, totally baffled

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

    Because they don’t give a fuck about anyone who can’t compete in the bribery market.

    They care more about their bank accounts than the people who “voted” them into power, let alone the ones who didn’t vote for them at all.

    They tried to steal the 2020 election several times in various ways, and it is my firm belief they stole the 2024 election by altering the vote counts in counties all over the nation with a virus thinly veiled as a “software update” which was put into the voting machines by DOGE cronies all over the nation just before the election. Remember that? Remember how Elon Musk couldn’t fucking help but blab about how he stole the election for Trump in that one interview?

    Yeah. The absurdity of openly admitting it is exactly the kind of sadism these demons find humorous.

    “Go ahead Elon. What are they gonna do? They have no branch of government left to punish anyone with 😂😂😂”

    I’m disgusted to share a species with these vile creatures.

    At some point we’re going to have to stop talking about them, and start acting.

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  • 26 comments in c/workreform@lemmy.world view that post
    [–] 97 points 2 months ago (12 children)

    its money. its always money. its never not money. if you feel in doubt about whether its money, rest assured, its money.

    why are conservatives so pliable with and with regards to money? well, thats a complete lack of morality.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    It's not always money. Cruelty is its own reward for these ghouls.

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  • nope. as much as id almost prefer it be malicious, id say thats adding more thought processing into these peoples actions than they deserve. they are morons chasing every dollar and the cruelty is an unnoticed byproduct.

    none of these sickos is sitting around trying to make peoples lives worse. they are only, ever, thinking of how to make their lives better. it just comes off as purposefully malicious to those with even a little empathy. these people have none.

    do not give them cognitive credit for acting better than the animals their actions show them to be.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago (2 children)

    But it's way more expensive to have to train a new person after you kill the last one.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago

    Either they won't hire a replacement and force the current staff to do more work or they will hire the replacement for less pay. From an evil corporatist perspective that's still a win that leads to profits.

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  • [–] 51 points 2 months ago (6 children)
  • [–] 9 points 2 months ago*

    Exactly what I was about to post. Conservatism has drifted from "avoid making adjustments to elements of society that formed organically" to "do whatever lets you be cold in the face of suffering and injustice". Not that the earlier justification was particularly insightful, but at least the rationale had some basis in trying to preserve functional aspects of culture.

    It's all just based on the worst possible emotional justification at this point. And how could they turn back now? That would mean admitting that they'd done immense harm by ignoring the result of their actions.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 months ago (4 children)

    Cruelty already implies intent so even if this comment weren’t trite from being plastered absolutely everywhere, it adds nothing.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    I was trying to answer the question, why are Republicans going after these protections? Because of cruelty. Not very insightful or unique, as you said, but it is the main reason.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago

    Here. Since I’m complaining about this empty phrase, it’s only fair to offer something better:

    To a greater degree than during any other presidency, the Trump administration (and by extension Republican politicians generally) have not always needed a reason to inflict cruelty on Americans other than who they are.

    Trump has governed not by allying with others who share his ideals or philosophies but rather those who show him personal deference and loyalty. In kind, he has won the votes of several groups of disgruntled Americans simply by hurting the groups they hate. The broad polarization of America sometimes called the “Culture War” has pitted Americans against each another across many real or imagined dividing lines, including race and religion but also more trivial matters such as whether you like the new Odyssey movie, in which a trans celebrity plays a part.

    Trump has taken policy action against trans people, the country of Canada, blue states within America, specific companies he perceives to be “woke” and groups such as organized labor, since many Trump supporters consider Unions to be entitled proto-communist organizations that benefit unfairly through mass economic extortion.

    It’s possible that with this backdrop, a ban on worker heat protections is simply a business-friendly gesture that Trump has made on behalf of a wealthy acquaintance who complained to him about the annoyance of following these regulations. Or it could be another in a series of actions taken along “culture war” lines to injure the perceived enemies of Trump voters, in this case workers rights advocates and laborers. An odd feature of the culture war is that, while many Trump voters themselves may be laborers at risk of heat injury, they may cheer for an action like this because they focus on the perception that it will harm illegal immigrant laborers or laborers in California, etc. 

    In this way the culture war takes precedence even over voting in self-interest. And this adherence to “helping our group” while we “hurt the other group” resembles one feature of many Fascist regimes: the belief that one group in a country are “pure” and must defend their purity from domestic enemies, practical interests be damned. 

    Another possible explanation for Republicans many seemingly arbitrary action is what conservative strategist Steve Bannon dubbed “flooding the zone,” a kind of media blitzkrieg approach that disorients/ drowns out political opponents and scatters the public’s attention by bombarding them with a constant stream of various outrageous actions, statements, and demands. As with many past Trump actions, the question “why is he doing this” is commonly answered “to distract from the Epstein files.”

    So why attack worker heat protections? Pro-business corruption, a salvo in the culture war or just more “flooding the zone.” Ang of these could always apply to any Republican action that seems arbitrary with no immediate tactical purpose.

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  • [–] 16 points 2 months ago

    Because they're evil bastards

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  • [–] 11 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    GOP is a death cult. They are doing everything they can to cause the most deaths.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 months ago

    Because they don't care if we suffer and die, they want to be free to treat us like slaves , again.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 months ago

    Because global warming was the plan.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago

    Because they are evil. There are no good reasons.

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  • 8 comments in c/aboringdystopia@lemmy.world view that post
    [–] 27 points 2 months ago

    Why do owners beat their slaves? It's the same question.

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  • [–] 25 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    For the love of the game, I guess. They like torturing the poors.

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  • [–] 12 points 2 months ago

    Bribing politicians is cheaper than providing water, cooling, and breaks.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 months ago

    Money and racism.

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  • [–] 16 points 2 months ago

    Fucking unionise, America!

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago

    Because Republicans undo everything. That's what they do. If you don't want them to dismantle large parts of the government, don't vote for them and don't stay home.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago

    Seems counterproductive though. It’s one thing to abuse illegal immigrants desperate for a job and who are not allowed protection, but once you terrorize them, seems like the remaining workers are more likely to have options

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