8/9/21 OSHA Needs to Set a Ceiling for Working Outdoors -- Or People Will Die From Heat

Ask whatever expert you like, and as long as that expert isn't a hard-bit climate change denier, they'll say that the planet is heating up. Ask a politician or a regulator about people who work in that heat, and you'll probably get awkward looks.

While the climate gets hotter, regulatory relief for people who work outdoors is stalled by political reality. At OSHA, the heat stress standard is "a consideration." You'd think it would be pretty easy to say, "When the heat index rises past 100 degrees, the work shuts down." But it's not that easy, technically or otherwise.

Florida and Texas are the two US states with the most construction workers. By mid-century, some scientists predict, both states will see an additional month's worth of days with the heat index rising to 90 degrees and more. Even now, construction workers account for 36 percent of heat-related deaths on the job -- and construction accounts for just 6% of American workers. But many other people work in dangerously hot places, such as warehouses -- including at Amazon -- and in agricultural jobs, where about half of the workers are illegal and have no way to complain.

Hard hearts beneath the hard hats don't help. Sharon Medina, a 47-year-old immigrant, is a construction worker in Houston. She's seen one coworker get fired after collapsing in the heat. She gets just 15 minutes for lunch. To drink a little water, she has to get out of sight of the boss.

OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, has resisted setting standards for heat for nine administrations, according to the article from Politico cited below. The Centers for Disease Control first recommended setting a heat standard back in 1975, when Gerald Ford was president.

Even during the Obama administration, the standard development was set aside because OSHA was so understaffed, and because Obama would become a target for the Republican spin machine, according to the top OSHA official at the time.

California's employers have to provide shade and water at 85 degrees and remind workers to drink at 95 degrees. But employees still wind up in the hospital for heat-related issues. So yes, it's hard to set standards. This year, however, with unseasonable heat waves striking the Pacific Northwest and elsewhere, it's time for OSHA to step up.

Whatever difficulties are involved are nothing compared with watching human beings die of heat-related causes on the job in one of the richest countries on earth.

_______

What do you think is a reasonable top level of discomfort for working in the heat?

Is it possible for Biden to get OSHA heat standards on a fast track before the midterm elections?

Have you personally done anything to help people who are working in extreme heat -- say, landscapers?

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/08/08/osha-climate-change-effects-workforce-heat-impact-501744