The summer of 2023 was the hottest ever recorded.

This summer may be even hotter.

According to the National Weather Service, heat kills more people each year than hurricanes, floods, and tornadoes combined.

Yet the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has not issued nationwide standards to protect workers from extreme heat on the job.

• In the absence of federal standards, a handful of states have enacted some protections, but they are the exception.

• In fact, MAGA governors like Greg Abbott in Texas and Ron DeSantis in Florida — you know, two of the hottest states in the country — have signed laws that actually *prevent* local communities from adopting commonsense protections like requiring shade and water breaks.

• Because Trump wannabes like Abbott and DeSantis care more about waging an idiotic “culture war” than saving the lives of their own constituents.

Here’s what Public Citizen’s worker health and safety advocate, Juley Fulcher, told the national media:

The smattering of heat protection rules is inadequate — leaving the vast majority of workers in the U.S. in 45 states without any protection from dangerously high heat on the job. While some of the hottest states in the country undercut basic humanitarian rights for vulnerable workers, OSHA presses on through the extensive process of rulemaking, hoping no one dies while a federal heat standard waits to be enacted. But workers are dying, and the contradictory local and state rules are only making it more difficult to protect them.

• Some 50 million employees in America are exposed to extreme heat on the job. And it’s not just outdoor laborers in agriculture and construction — it’s also indoor workers in factories, warehouses, industrial kitchens, and more.

• Heat killed more than 2,000 workers in the U.S. last year and injured another 170,000.

• And — as with so many unaddressed problems in our country — poor people and people of color suffer disproportionately.

• On top of all that, the combined failure of OSHA and Big Business to protect workers costs our economy nearly $100 billion — that’s $100,000,000,000 — every year, which impacts all of us, whether or not we or anyone we know works under extreme conditions.

OSHA currently says it may not finalize a nationwide standard to protect workers from extreme heat until 2026 or even later. This is simply unacceptable.

Tell officials at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration:

It’s getting hotter and hotter. Workers are dying every day. And not only have you so far failed to issue national standards to protect workers from extreme heat on the job, but in the absence of action you should have taken already, some MAGA governors are signing draconian, inhumane laws that prevent local communities in their states from instituting even the most basic protections. Issue an interim rule now, in time to protect millions and millions of workers throughout what could be another record breaking summer.

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Thanks for taking action.

For progress,

- Robert Weissman, President of Public Citizen
 
 
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