August 1, 2024
On 23 June, Shae Parker had to leave her shift early at a gas station in Columbia, South Carolina, to go to the emergency room due to heat exhaustion; she wasn’t paid for missing the rest of her shift. The air conditioning at her workplace has been on the fritz for weeks, she said, and her station heats up easily as the sun beams through its large windows, reports The Guardian.
Millions of Americans faced dangerous temperatures earlier this month as a heat dome blanketed the Midwest and eastern United States. The National Weather Service issued a heat advisory for much of South Carolina as temperatures hit the 90s (F).
Yet, workers across the country who toil in the heat both indoors and outdoors have to get through the summer without any heat protections in the workplace. Like Parker, many workers are left to try to treat their heat stress symptoms on their own.
This past June was the hottest month of June on record worldwide; while July 2023 to June 2024 have been the hottest 12 months on record, with 2024 on pace to break 2023 as the hottest year on record.
On July 2, the Biden Administration announced a proposal for an Occupational Safety and Health Administration rule to protect 36 million U.S. workers from the heat. But implementation won’t likely occur for several more years as the release of the rule proposal is just the third of seven steps in OSHA’s rule-making process.
It could face challenges in courts, causing further delays, or be derailed altogether if Donald Trump wins the 2024 election. The rule provides more robust rules and higher fines on employers to protect workers.
omeone fainted two weeks ago and the week before that, someone had a seizure,” Mervin says. “A worker shouldn’t have to die for Popeyes for employers to take unbearable heat seriously.”
In 2023, an estimated 2,300 people in the United States died from heat-related illness—the highest record of heat-related deaths in 45 years.
“The excessive heat the US has experienced in the last month is particularly dangerous to the people who have to work in it. Hundreds of thousands of workers succumb to heat-related illness, injury and death each year,” said Rebecca Dixon, president and CEO of the National Employment Law Project.
“The risk of workplace heat dangers is especially acute for workers of color, who are more likely to work in jobs that expose them to excessive heat as a result of occupational segregation,” Dixon said.” “As human-caused climate change produces more extreme temperatures, the need for strong federal heat protections is becoming more urgent every summer.”
Research contact: @guardian
