November 11, 2024
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Worker Protections at Risk for Extreme Heat After Trump’s Election
A Biden administration proposal requiring employers to provide cooling measures during extreme heat conditions could be thwarted by the incoming Trump administration.
A worker adjusts a helmet at a construction site in Los Angeles during a heat wave in July 2024.
Etienne Laurent/AFP via Getty Images
KLIMAWIRE | Former President Donald Trump’s return to the White House jeopardizes new heat protections for workers proposed by the Biden administration this summer, labor advocates say.
On the campaign trail, Trump never directly addressed the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s proposal to force employers to provide workers with water and cool places to rest when temperatures are high.
But many of Trump’s Republican allies in Congress rejected the idea when it was announced, including House Natural Resources Chairman Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.). Westerman called it “one of the stupidest things they’ve ever done” and said the heat protection rules ignoring the realities of outside work.
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During Trump’s first term, OSHA abandoned work on many health regulations, including one that will be proposed in October 2017 this would force the healthcare industry to prepare for an airborne pandemic like COVID-19.
Killing the heat protection proposal outright, however, would be difficult for the incoming Trump administration because of laws governing how OSHA delivers public health standards, said Jordan Barabe, who was OSHA’s deputy assistant secretary of labor for occupational safety and health under Obama. the administration
But Barabe said there is nothing that requires the next administration to end the rule, which could put people’s lives at risk.
“If the Trump administration does not move forward, people will die,” said Barab. “I don’t think there’s any doubt about that.”
Heat killed at least 815 workers between 1992 and 2017 and seriously injured an additional 70,000, according to federal data. And health advocates say the toll is likely to increase as temperatures rise with global warming.
OSHA has been under pressure for decades to protect workers from heat, a 1986 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend heat standards.
Democrats in Congress recently put pressure on the agency at the end of the Trump administration with a bill — now sponsored by Vice President Kamala Harris — that would have given the agency a rule.
But it was only this past summer that OSHA finally proposed regulations that, if finalized, could protect about 35 million workers from extreme heat.
Groups representing some of those workers now fear it won’t go into effect.
“President Trump should actively work to undo this progress, putting workers — including many who undoubtedly voted — in harm’s way,” said Antonio De Loera-Brust, a spokesman for the United Farm Workers. “Whether or not those workers die from extreme heat shouldn’t be a partisan issue.”
In the absence of federal action, workers and their advocates should lobby the 29 states that enforce worker safety standards to implement their own heat protections, Barabe said.
He added that the state’s action could create a situation similar to the history of the “right to know” rule, which requires employers to inform employees of the hazardous properties of the chemicals they work with. In 1981, the Reagan administration froze work on these regulations that had begun under President Jimmy Carter.
After labor advocates successfully persuaded about 15 states to adopt their own rules over two years, OSHA was forced to publish its right-to-know rule in 1983 to standardize requirements across jurisdictions.
Currently, six states have heat shields for workers, but others are resistant to the idea. Texas and Florida recently passed laws barring municipalities from requiring water and rest breaks for employees.
One state that has moved forward with more protections is Maryland, which enacted its own heat standards in September, prompted in part by the death of a Baltimore sanitation worker.
“If there’s a silver lining, there’s no doubt that climate change is a problem, and we’re likely to have another record hot spring and summer. These temperature increases are not easily hidden, nor are the inevitable deaths in the workplace,” Barabe said. “So there may be some pressure at the state and federal level to do something.”
Reprinted E&E News Courtesy of POLITICO, LLC. Copyright 2024. E&E News provides essential news for energy and environmental professionals.
