John — With climate change on the rise, we need to be concerned about not just our homes and cities. Flash floods, tornadoes, and heatwaves also put our workplaces at risk.

Climate change makes extreme weather more common and creates deadly hazards to jobs once considered safe.

Federal law requires workers to have a “safe and healthy” workplace. And the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is meant to write, enforce, and revise the nationwide job-safety rulebook to protect that right. But since its inception 51 years ago, it has been subjected to legislative and fiscal attacks that have put workers' lives on the line.

OSHA currently has fewer than 1,000 inspectors who are given the herculean task of monitoring the safety of 10 million workplaces. Additionally, because the agency was originally codified twenty years before the first Congressional hearing on climate change, its underlying statute no longer reflects the real hazards that workers are facing today.

Unfortunately, many in Congress have sought to keep OSHA in this constrained role, but that’s where SEEC comes in.

Chairs Bobby Scott of the Education and Labor Committee and Raúl Grijalva of Natural Resources Committee – both SEEC members – co-introduced the Asunción Valdivia Heat Illness and Fatality Prevention Act to protect workers from occupational heat exposure. This law would require OSHA to establish and enforce high-heat protections for workers and direct employers in providing employee training on heat risks, prevention, and response.

SEEC members recognize that climate change affects every aspect of our lives, which is why they are taking an all-systems approach to reduce its risks. Will you stand with SEEC members in their mission to create climate-resilient work environments and donate today to support their work?

Thanks for fighting back,

SEEC PAC