Nathan Howard/AP Photo
Pedro Lucas, nephew of farmworker Sebastian Francisco Perez, who died in June while working in an extreme heat wave, talks about his uncle’s death, July 1, 2021, in St. Paul, Oregon.
As temperatures break records across the country this summer, workers have increasingly been going on strike, demanding protection against excessive heat that has cost several workers their lives. And the federal agency that could, with the stroke of a pen, force employers to create standards to prevent heat injuries and deaths has been indifferent to doing so.
In June, elementary school teachers in Flint, Michigan, went on strike after the school district refused to fix broken air-conditioning in their building. In July, workers at a Lincoln, Nebraska, Burger King walked out after a pregnant co-worker ended up in the hospital with severe dehydration after being forced to work in 90-degree heat. In August, a group of McDonald’s workers in Detroit walked off the job after their manager refused to fix the air-conditioning.
“It is burning up in there; it is hot like an oven,” said one Detroit McDonald’s worker on a viral TikTok video. “We decided to not come back till the air comes back.”
After a manager at a Sacramento Jack in the Box made sexist comments about why female workers couldn’t handle working without functioning air-conditioning, workers there also decided to walk out.
“Management refuses to pay for the parts they need to make sure the A/C doesn’t keep breaking,” said worker Maria Chavez in a statement released by Fight for 15 Northern California. “Instead one manager blamed menopause! It’s NOT menopause—the A/C needs to be fixed!”
Farmworkers have also demanded heat safety measures for the fields, after a summer in which hundreds have died during heat waves in the Pacific Northwest.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has received record complaints this year about heat issues, according to records obtained by HuffPost. However, despite all the calls for the federal government to do something about workers toiling in record heat, the Biden administration has so far refused to release an Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) that would force employers to institute protections.
“The remedies are really well known. We know that rest, shade, and water are key pieces to a heat prevention program, and not all employers provide these necessities,” says Jessica Martinez, the executive director of the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health.
The Biden administration has so far refused to release an Emergency Temporary Standard that would force employers to institute protections.
Martinez has been frustrated by the unwillingness of Biden’s OSHA to use its power to issue a federal heat standard. With climate change expected to raise temperatures even more and generate more frequent heat waves, Martinez says now is the time for the federal government to make it happen.
“I think it’s a good reminder, first and foremost of making the connection between workplace health and safety and environment, which is that climate change is real, and a real danger to workers,” says Martinez.
States have not filled the gap. Only three states (California, Washington, and Minnesota) have regulations on workplaces operating under extreme heat. Oregon issued temporary rules in July after two workers died in a heat wave that saw temperatures reach 118 degrees.
OSHA also slow-walked an Emergency Temporary Standard for COVID-19, waiting until June of 2021 and ultimately only creating that standard for hospitals and other health care workplaces. For other workers, the agency only updated nonbinding guidance for employers.
With one study by the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health saying that 42 workers died from heatstroke in the last year, workplace safety advocates hope that the Biden administration moves quickly. However, OSHA insiders say that it’s unlikely that OSHA will use record heat to immediately issue an Emergency Temporary Standard, rather than going through a multiyear legal-review process.
“[OSHA Emergency Temporary Standards] are very difficult to get through judicial review, and the way the law is written, the agency would have to issue a full standard within six months, which is impossible,” says Jordan Barab, who served as deputy OSHA administrator under President Obama. “What happens if the agency fails to issue by the six-month deadline: Does the ETS expire or does it stay in effect until a full standard is issued?”
Due to decades-long underfunding of OSHA, which dropped to record-low levels under the Trump administration, many former OSHA insiders fear that, even if the Biden administration wanted to move quickly on issuing a heat standard, it would be impossible to do so.
“The agency is way down in staff in the office that writes standards and way down in money they can spend on this,” says Debbie Berkowitz, who served as chief of staff at OSHA under Obama. “Even under Obama, OSHA could really only work on one health standard at a time because the budget is so low, and the legal burden [and] hoops OSHA must go through to write a standard are enormous.”
Worker safety advocates are educating workers to resist unsafe heat conditions and strike if necessary to protect their lives.
So far, the Biden administration has yet to indicate at what speed it would move to issue a permanent heat safety standard. However, momentum for a regulatory fix that would protect workers from extreme heat is moving in Congress.
“This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and workers in this country still have no legal protection against one of the oldest, most serious and most common workplace hazards: excessive heat,” said House Committee on Education and Labor chairman Bobby Scott, in a statement introducing legislation earlier this year. “Heat illness affects workers in our nation’s fields, warehouses, and factories, and climate change is making the problem more severe every year.”
The legislation, introduced in both chambers, would require OSHA to write a heat standard on a fast-track timeline, which would include safety precautions like “paid breaks in cool spaces, access to water, limitations on time exposed to heat, and emergency response for workers with heat-related illness.” It would also mandate training for employees on heat-related risk factors, and emergency guidance when workers show symptoms.
But with thin margins in Congress and no Republicans on board, the bill doesn’t have a likely path to becoming law at this point. Plus, OSHA has all the authority it needs to write a workplace standard now.
Until it does, worker safety advocates are educating workers to resist unsafe heat conditions and strike if necessary to protect their lives.
“We’re putting a call and mobilizing workers [to] demand that their employers provide these essential protections that won’t let them fall into issues of heat illness,” says Jessica Martinez.
