Extreme heat represents an urgent workplace safety hazard in Midwestern states like Michigan but competing measures in Congress have blocked a solution.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration proposed a rule requiring employers to provide water, rest breaks and cooling for workers but it has since stalled and legislation has been introduced to prevent OSHA from enforcing the rule.
Nicole Hernandez Hammer, director of climate and environmental justice for the Service Employees International Union, said hotter outdoor temperatures are not going away.
"Conditions, whether you're indoor or outdoor during extreme heat or even just the hotter times of the summer can be and have been life-threatening. Fast food workers as an example of that in hot kitchens without proper cooling," Hernandez Hammer explained.
SEIU members submitted more than a thousand public comments supporting the standard. Rep. Mark Messmer, R-Ind., introduced the bill to prevent OSHA from enforcing the heat safety rule. He argued it's "overly burdensome" to businesses.
More than 20 states have their own heat protections but Michigan is not one of them. It does, however, have a state OSHA emphasis program aimed at identifying and reducing exposures to indoor and outdoor heat-related hazards.
Hernandez Hammer stressed workers need urgent protections at every level: federal, state and local.
"I think an awareness of how risky work conditions can be, and how necessary it is for protections to be put into place as soon as possible because every hot day that we go without the proper protections for workers is a day that lives are put at risk," Hernandez Hammer emphasized.
Texas has the highest total number of heat-related worker fatalities in the country. Nonetheless, state lawmakers in 2023 passed legislation to overturn protections for outdoor workers in Austin and Dallas, including mandated water breaks in extreme heat, saying municipalities could not have their own rules.
