Workers around the country experienced brutal heat this summer, with July the hottest month on record. It’s creating a safety crisis on the job, as workers report severe nausea, dizziness, exhaustion, and worse.
The heat is making members “dread going to work and fear for their health,” said Nicole Hernandez-Hammer, Director of Climate and Environmental Justice for the Service Employees (SEIU). “Some have had to be hospitalized for heat stroke symptoms while employers denied medical help.”
But U.S. employers still face no national heat safety regulation. And if Republicans in Congress get their way, they never will.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) started developing a heat standard in 2021 and proposed a draft in 2024, but now Republicans want to pass a law—with the Orwellian name “Heat Workforce Standards Act”—that will stop OSHA from creating or enforcing a national heat safety standard.
“Workers know what keeps people safe,” said Jessica Martinez, executive director of the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (COSH): “access to water, rest, and shade; effective training and emergency plans; protection from retaliation; and strong standards that employers are required to follow.”
But as it stands, she said, “every day, workers are forced to choose between their health and their paycheck.”
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