We need to protect workers from extreme weather.
News of the world environment
NEWSLETTER | APRIL 26, 2024
Regulating Heat
Here, in the California Bay Area, spring temperatures are trending upwards, and last week we had some of our first really warm days of the year. Which got me thinking — or rather, fuming — about the lack of heat-related protections for workers across much of the United States.
Extreme heat has long impacted people on the job, resulting in an estimated 40 work-related heat deaths each year, and thousands of injuries. And, of course, the climate crisis is only making things worse. Yet so far, only five US states have passed laws that protect workers from extreme heat. Three states — California, Washington, and Colorado — protect all or some outdoor workers. Minnesota protects indoor workers. And Oregon one-ups them all by protecting both. That leaves much of the country without modest on-the-job protections around access to things like water, shade, and safety training for dealing with heat stress.
What’s worse is that some states have taken a particularly cynical — and dangerous — stance, enacting laws that prevent cities and towns from enacting their own local standards around heat. (I’m looking at you, Texas and Florida.) Even California, which has been working on protections for indoor workers, isn’t quite meeting the mark: This week it announced that it plans to exclude prisons from the new rules, which would leave out not only prison staff, but also the tens of thousands of incarcerated people who hold jobs while in prison.
A federal heat standard — first recommended more than 50 years ago — is in the works, but is several years off at best. In the meantime, it’s up to all of us to turn up the heat on lawmakers, and demand robust protections for workers.
Zoe Loftus-Farren
Managing Editor, Earth Island Journal
Photo by Lance Cheung/USDA
TOP STORIES
Land and Lifeways
For Dakota-Sioux author Teresa Peterson, reclaiming land and place names is a way of reconciling with history and returning to balance.
READ MORE
Ripple Effect
In this Earth Day reflection, writer Michael Engelhard echoes Thoreau: “He who hears the rippling of rivers in these degenerate days will not utterly despair.”
READ MORE
People-Powered Journalism
Because of generous reader donations, Earth Island Journal can say things that corporate media won’t say.
Reader support gives us the independence to amplify voices and perspectives that strengthen communities, especially communities that don’t have access to corporate media.
Your support is essential to our long-term success. And with your help, we can reshape the media landscape. Won't you join us today?
I Support Earth Island Journal
The Price of Truth
A new documentary on the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear plant accident in Pennsylvania tells the story of the four mothers who turned into inadvertent activists in the wake of the disaster.
READ MORE
ICYMI
A Shining Anti-Hero
Lyanda Fern Lynn Haupt ponders on the much-maligned starling, and how our interrelatedness with other beings "leaves us faltering in the face of many species’ disruptive presence to ecosystemic integrity.”
READ MORE >>
Image by Joshua J. Cotten
Lifestyles of the Rich
A deep dive into the forces that are remaking ski towns in the Mountain West, and what wealth brings — and takes away.
READ MORE >>
Photo by Kevin Bree
Did a thoughtful friend forward you our newsletter? Keep up with the latest from Earth Island Journal!
SIGN UP TODAY
Follow
Follow
Subscribe
You are receiving this email newsletter because you signed up on our website.
If this newsletter was forwarded to you, you can sign up to the email newsletter here.
Support our work by subscribing to our quarterly print magazine.
Copyright © 2023 Earth Island Journal, All rights reserved.
Our mailing address is:
Earth Island Journal
2150 Allston Way Ste 460
Berkeley, CA 94704-1375
Add us to your address book
Want to change how you receive these emails?
Update your preferences
