Workers need new heat protection immediately

Another summer, another record-breaking heat wave. The National Weather Service has issued heat warnings for California, urging residents to stay out of the sun, drink fluids and check on their neighbors all week. Forecasters are keeping an eye on Death Valley National Park, site of the hottest temperature ever reliably recorded on Earth — 130 degrees Fahrenheit in 2020 and again in 2021 — to see if this week’s heat will set a new record. Last month, a heat wave on the East Coast shattered dozens of local records.

Climate change means that extreme heat is happening more often. That’s a dangerous development because it’s the deadliest weather event in the United States, causing more deaths than floods, hurricanes and tornadoes combined. Last year was the hottest on record, killing at least 2,300 people, with the actual number likely much higher because extreme heat exacerbates other health problems that are often cited as causes of death.

But even as extreme temperatures require people to take precautions, many employee shifts go on as usual. Workers have few recourse against such employer exposure, and the consequences are deadly. Stories abound of workers dying on the job in hot weather. No matter how young or healthy someone is, extreme heat kills, and the predictability of such deaths makes them all the more devastating.

In response to the growing crisis of heat-related workplace deaths, President Joe Biden has proposed the first-ever federal heat standard. The long-awaited new Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulation would require employers to “identify heat-related hazards, develop plans to respond to heat-related illnesses and emergencies, provide training to employees and supervisors, and implement work practice standards—including rest breaks, access to shade and water, and heat acclimation for new hires.”

“Workers across the country are fainting, suffering heat strokes and dying from heat exposure just doing their jobs, and something needs to be done to protect them,” said Douglas L. Parker, assistant secretary of labor for occupational health and safety, of the new standard. “Today’s proposal is an important next step in the public comment process to develop a final win-win rule that protects workers while also being practical and enforceable for employers.”

If implemented, the rule would establish a heat index of 80 degrees Fahrenheit as the initial heat trigger. Once a workplace reaches that temperature, employers would be required to provide new work practice standards, such as drinking water and rest breaks. If a workplace reaches a heat index of 90 degrees Fahrenheit, employers would be required to provide workers with at least a 15-minute paid rest break at least every two hours. The rule would also require immediate action to help an employee experiencing signs and symptoms of a heat emergency. Employers who fail to meet the standard could be fined more than $16,000, depending on the violation, a senior administration official said. New York Times.

The White House says the rule will affect about thirty-six million workers, both indoors and outdoors. While it has long been known that outdoor workers, such as those in agriculture, gardening or construction, are vulnerable to extreme weather, indoor workers have been organizing in recent years to draw attention to the risks they face.

Amazon workers, once abandoned by both elected officials and organized labor, have taken matters into their own hands in sprawling warehouses where temperatures can exceed those outside. Amazonians United, a minority union operating at several of the company’s warehouses, pushed the company to make more water available to warehouse workers, which soon prompted the company to beef up water supplies nationwide. A study last year by Inland Empire Amazon Workers United found that workers want more access to drinking water, a cool place to rest and time to recharge during heat waves.

Amazon is no exception. A recent Oxfam report found that at Walmart, the nation’s largest private employer, which employs about 1.6 million people nationwide, heat-related problems are worse. While 41 percent of Amazon workers surveyed by the organization said they had experienced some degree of dehydration in the past three months, a shocking 91 percent Walmart employees suffered from dehydration.

On the West Coast, fast-food workers are staging limited strikes in response to sweltering working conditions. Last month, Taco Bell workers in San Jose walked off the job over conditions they deemed unsafe, saying temperatures at their location could exceed 90 degrees Fahrenheit and that their boss had failed to fix the store’s broken air conditioning. Starbucks workers, recently spurred by a nationwide unionization drive, also went on strike at various locations over broken air conditioning during recent heat waves.

The minority of workers who have unions have also made protecting themselves from the heat a priority. The 340,000 Teamsters truck drivers who work at UPS recently forced the logistics giant to retrofit its fleet of distinctive brown vehicles with air conditioning, a move made all the more urgent after several UPS workers died on the job while delivering packages in the heat.

California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) mandates employers meet a heat standard to protect outdoor workers from heat-related illnesses, but the standard exempts indoor workers (California is one of only five states with such protections, although New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts are considering their own mandates). Last week, Cal/OSHA adopted a standard that covers those workers, although it has not yet been implemented. Interestingly, the new standard exempts prison workers from protection, a move that will likely be replicated in other regulations, including at the federal level.

That is, if implemented as proposed. But the proposed rules will now be subject to a comment and review period, which is sure to draw challenges from business groups that argue the proposed rules are too expensive and burdensome. As is often the case when the state takes any action, no matter how minimal, to protect workers, capital will fight tooth and nail to thwart the order.

As New York Times notes that industry groups “have said they intend to challenge the rule’s legality once it is implemented, likely later this year.” (As for the tactics employers will take, the paper quotes Marc Freedman, vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation’s largest business lobbying group, who wrote that “(employers) have a hard time determining when heat is a threat because every worker experiences heat differently.”) Congress should codify the new protections into law, but with so many legislators captured by business interests, the chances of such a move are slim.

That doesn’t mean the proposed standard won’t be implemented in its current form, but it does mean workers shouldn’t hold their breath about the possibility that the severely underfunded OSHA will keep them safe. Workplaces are hot in most of the country. Only by standing together, refusing unsafe working conditions, and getting protections in writing at the bargaining table will we not lose more of our neighbors to the heat.