Congressman Holds 'Thirst Strike' on Capitol Steps

Greg Casar urges Biden administration to mandate water breaks for workers
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 26, 2023 1:48 PM CDT
Congressman Holds 'Thirst Strike' on Capitol Steps
US Rep. Greg Casar speaks at a nurses strike at Ascension Seton Medical Center in Austin, Texas, on Tuesday June 27, 2023.   (Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman via AP)

On a sweltering day in Washington, DC, Rep. Greg Casar held an all-day "thirst strike" on the Capitol steps to demand federally mandated water breaks for workers. Casar is from Texas, where Gov. Greg Abbott recently signed a law to nullify local ordinances that mandate water breaks for construction workers. In a letter signed by more than 110 of his fellow Democrats, Casar urged the Biden administration to bring in a workplace heat rule, Fox News reports. Casar went without water Tuesday for more than eight hours to represent the length of an average workplace shift.

"After no water for nearly 9 hours on the Capitol steps, I'm more confident than ever that we can make positive change in this country for working people—including winning the right to basic water breaks," Casar said in a social media post late Tuesday. On the Capitol steps, Casar was joined by supporters including Sen. Bernie Sanders, who said, "It is beyond belief that in the middle of what is expected to be the hottest year on record, right-wing politicians want to take away basic rights like water breaks." He was also joined by relatives of Roendy Granillo, a 25-year old construction worker who died from heat stroke in Dallas in 2015, CBS reports.

This wasn't Casar's first thirst strike, the Washington Post reports. In Austin in 2010 and in Dallas in 2015, he took part in protests that led to the cities bringing in water break ordinances, which will be overturned in September when the new Texas law takes effect. "We won in 2010 and 2015 by having a thirst strike," he told the Post on Tuesday. "And now in 2023, we've had another thirst strike that I think is what's going to propel Congress and the White House to enact federal heat protections." (More heat wave stories.)

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