Good news: temperatures are dropping in La Palma, in the Canary Islands

lament texas workers

An AFP journalist interviewed construction workers in Texas, where the temperature is above 40 degrees. Perched on a platform to paint a 10-meter-high wall in the sweltering Texas heat, Maynor Alvarez suddenly felt a fever, he says.

“I’ve had heatstroke before. And do you know what that does? Cramps in the legs and arms, headaches, the urge to vomit and palpitations,” says Mayor Alvarez, a house painter of Guatemalan descent. “But when I complain to my supervisor, who was downstairs, he tells me to keep working (…) come down because I can’t take it anymore (…) if I stay five more minutes, I won’t be here to tell you about it.” “.

These days, workers and their representatives in Houston are demonstrating against a recent law approved by the Republican governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, to question the right of construction workers in cities like Dallas or Austin to a four-hour break.

The law, which is set to go into effect in September, does not ban such breaks, but aims to harmonize statewide regulations on a range of topics related to labor law or farming, rather than letting municipalities, which are usually democratic, dictate about it. the topic.

During the rally in Houston, construction worker Luz Martinez told AFP she recounted how she had to work in a 20-story building where workers had to go down to the ground floor to drink outside. “On the Fourth of July, a public holiday (in the US), we were renovating a school, indoors, without air conditioning because there were some who didn’t want to pay for electricity,” she explains, remembering a “colleague of hers” who felt unwell. “We are dying. Depriving us of water and breaks to hydrate ourselves is not fair.”

This weekend, record temperatures are expected in the state, including 46C on Saturday in Corpus Christi, in the South.