Jae C. Hong/AP
For the past 20 years, Victor Ramirez has worked in warehouses throughout Southern California. And in almost all of them he felt a painful and unbearable oppressive fever. A few years ago he passed out during his work. When he came to, his co-workers were trying to sweep his floor to give him a place to rest.
“Sientes como si estás adentro de unhorno,” he says in Spanish. “It feels like I'm in an oven.”
Ramirez and thousands of other indoor workers across California have long asked the state to enact rules to protect workers from heat, especially as climate change increases the intensity and frequency of dangerous heat. It's here. They thought they were on the brink of success.
The California Occupational Safety and Health Administration's Standards Board (Cal/OSHA) this week voted on a rule that would give indoor workers the right to water, rest breaks, and cool areas if workplace temperatures exceed 82 degrees Fahrenheit. I was planning to. Employers must use fans, air conditioning, or other methods to cool the space and adjust work activities to account for increased heat fatigue when the temperature or heat index exceeds 87 degrees Fahrenheit. The heat index is an index that takes into account temperature and humidity, and is closer to the actual feeling of heat.
California was supposed to become the third state in the nation to enact rules to protect indoor workers from the heat.
But heat regulations face strong political headwinds in many parts of the country, even California, which is focused on climate change. Florida is in the process of banning cities and counties from enacting their own rules to protect workers from the heat. And Texas successfully blocked local heat restrictions across the state last year after several cities enacted ordinances.
Stephen Knight, executive director of worker-centered advocacy group WorkSafe, called the move a “major blow” to California Gov. Gavin Newsom's focus on combating climate change. “We really missed an opportunity to take action to provide support, assistance and protection to our most vulnerable workers,” he said.
Complications delay heat rule
California's proposed rules have not escaped the fierce opposition seen in other states.
A 2016 state law ordered state agencies to develop indoor heat regulations by 2019. That deadline passed as advocates, industry, and Cal/OSHA engaged in intense negotiations over the rule.
Seven years later, the California/OSHA Standards Board believes the rule has received approval from all necessary parties. Then, on the eve of the scheduled final vote, board members were instructed by the state Treasury to take the vote off the table, Board Chairman David Thomas said during Thursday's meeting.
Without an official vote, the rules cannot move forward and are at risk of being repealed entirely due to procedural issues.
“Today caught me off guard,” Thomas said.
Workers from various heat-affected industries shared their disappointment.
“You have failed us,” Raquel Saldaña, a San Diego janitor, said in Spanish. She described a suffocation condition that occurs in the summer when the air conditioner is turned off.
Surprised by the last-minute directive, the board took the unprecedented step of holding an informal vote on the rules. The symbolic vote was passed unanimously.
“We have a responsibility to California's workers,” Thomas said. Worsening heat risks mean time pressures are on. ”[We have to] “Please ensure that our people and workers are not exposed to the same conditions this summer as they were in the past,” he said.
Workers like Ramirez say there is no time to waste in implementing the rules. “Cada vez que viene el verano, me siento preocupado,” he says in Spanish. “Every time summer comes, I get worried.” And this summer is just around the corner.
Ramirez is furious that rules giving indoor workers breaks, access to cool rest areas and cold water on hot days are currently stalled.
“The best of humanity, the best of humanity,” he said in Spanish, adding that the state should “set an example for the rest of this country and show that we respect human beings here.” “life. “
A pattern bigger than California
Heat exposure for indoor and outdoor workers is increasing the risk of injury and death nationwide. However, recent years have shown that protecting workers from the heat has become a political issue in various parts of the country.
There are no federal regulations to protect workers from the heat. In their absence, cities, counties, and states have no choice but to build their own cities, a challenge few take up.
Only four states, California, Oregon, Washington and Colorado, have rules that protect outdoor workers, such as those in agriculture and construction, when temperatures soar dangerously into the 80s. Her only two states, Minnesota and Oregon, have protections for indoor workers.
“This means that workers in 45 states across the country have no legal protection and no legal right to be protected from heat exposure by their employers,” said Director of UCLA's Occupational Safety and Health Program. says Kevin Reilly.
Efforts to introduce protections in other regions have faced strong political headwinds. Last year, after several Texas cities enacted rules requiring construction workers to take shade and water breaks, the Texas Legislature enacted a law to prevent them. Florida is moving forward with a similar law that would prevent cities and counties from enacting their own heat regulations for workers.
Oregon is implementing heat measures for the first time after a brutal 2021 heat wave that killed hundreds of people in the Pacific Northwest. “The reality is we waited for someone to die before we took this action,” said Jamie Pan, environmental health program director for the Oregon Environmental Council. Oregon's rules cover both indoor and outdoor workers.
“The unrest in California is just another reminder of why we need federal heat protection,” said Juanita Constible, a policy expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Rob Moultrie, a policy advocate at the California Chamber of Commerce, said some industry leaders are concerned that the rules are not clear enough and may be difficult or impossible to implement for some businesses. It is said that they are doing so. For example, buildings in the transportation industry often have walls and are considered indoor workplaces. However, there are also large doors that are exposed to outdoor heat, which complicates internal thermal management.
Many businesses store items in shipping containers or outdoor sheds. These space rules are “not as clear and achievable as drafted, so they're not very helpful to businesses trying to implement them,” Moultrie said.
Restaurants are also in a difficult position. Kitchens are often hot spaces, and some businesses don't have the space to provide the necessary cooling areas. Also, it is difficult or impossible to vary heat exposure if, for example, an employee is cooking over an open flame.
Increasing risks due to climate change
California was the first state to successfully implement heat protection measures for outdoor workers, which have been in place since 2005.
Since then, anthropogenic climate change has significantly worsened heat risks. Eight of the 10 hottest years in the state's history have occurred since then. The 2022 heat wave killed nearly 300 people. Hundreds of people die each year in the state from heat exposure.
Cal/OSHA received more than 500 reports of heat-related workplace injuries last year. But R. Ji-Sung Park, an environmental economist at the University of Pennsylvania, says the actual number is probably much higher. He led a 2021 study that examined workers' compensation claims from 2001 to 2018 across California and compared injury records with daily temperatures.
Days with temperatures between 85 and 90 degrees Fahrenheit increased injuries by 5 to 7 percent compared to cooler days. Overall, the analysis estimated that 20,000 additional workers in the state could be injured annually due to working in uncomfortable hot conditions.
“For example, if you work on a 95-degree day, your risk of injury increases by more than 10 percent on that same day, and depending on your industry, it could be many times that amount,” says Park. says Mr. .
Heat can impair people's ability to think clearly, making them feel clumsy or dizzy. This means that all kinds of injuries can increase on hot days, not just obvious heat-related injuries like fainting. “Someone falls off a ladder, someone gets hit by a moving crane, someone gets their hand caught in equipment,” Park said. This is similar to the issue many workers described at this week's California/OSHA conference.
Summer is coming, Knight warned. And with that comes increased risk.
“The people who made that decision… [to cancel the vote] You don't have to see the worker's face,” says Worksafe's Knight, but “your body pays the price for this kind of trickery.”
California workers hope that no one has to die before protections are approved. For Yesenia Barrera, a former warehouse worker who now works for the Warehouse Worker Resource Center, an advocacy group promoting heat regulations, her message is simple. “Fever kills people. Please don't kill us,” she said.