RENO, Nev.—Santos Brizuela spent more than two decades laboring outdoors, persisting despite a bout of heatstroke while cutting sugarcane in Mexico and chronic laryngitis from repeated exposure to the hot sun while on various other jobs. But last summer, while on a construction crew in Las Vegas, he reached his…
A maintenance worker pushes a refuse cart in the sun on Friday, August 25, 2023, in Las Vegas. A historic heat wave that began blasting the Southwest and other parts of the country this summer is shining a spotlight on one of the harshest, yet least-addressed, effects of climate change in the US: the rising deaths and injuries of people who work in extreme heat, whether inside hot warehouses and kitchens or outside under the blazing sun. Many of them are migrants in low-wage jobs.RENO, Nev.
A historic heat wave that began blasting the Southwest and other parts of the country this summer is shining a spotlight on one of the harshest, yet least-addressed effects of US climate change: the rising deaths and injuries of people who work in extreme heat, whether inside warehouses and kitchens or outside under the blazing sun. Many of them are migrants in low-wage jobs.
Instead, workers in many states who are exposed to extreme heat are ostensibly protected by what is known as the “general duty clause,” which requires employers to mitigate hazards that could cause serious injury or death. The clause permits state authorities to inspect work sites for violations, and many do, but there are no consistent benchmarks for determining what constitutes a serious heat hazard.
Federal experts have recommended extreme heat protections since 1972, but it wasn’t until 1997 and 2006, respectively, that Minnesota and California adopted the first statewide protections. For a long time, those states were the exception, with only a scattering of others joining them throughout the early 2000s.“There are a lot of positive movements that give me some hope,” Keith said.
The Biden administration introduced new regulations in 2021 that would develop heat safety standards and strengthen required protective measures for most at-risk private sector workers, but the mandates are likely subject to several more years of review. A group of Democratic US Congress members introduced a bill last month that would effectively speed up the process by legislating heat standards.
United Kingdom Latest News, United Kingdom Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
At home, and still no justice for migrant domestic workersJustice is elusive for Filipino workers exploited by envoys invoking diplomatic immunity, but when the diplomats are Filipinos themselves, impunity is further enabled by the government that chooses to look away
Read more »
BPOs ‘disturbed’ by abuse of Filipino AI workersThe Philippine IT-Business Process Management (IT-BPM) industry is disturbed by how unregistered and unregulated business process outsourcing (BPO) companies are
Read more »
When diplomats are traffickers, migrant domestic workers are enslavedDiplomats and officials of international organizations traffick, abuse, and exploit their migrant domestic workers, shielded by diplomatic immunity and their sending countries
Read more »
Newsbreak Chats: How, why diplomats get away with exploiting migrant workersWatch Newsbreak Chats on Thursday, August 31, at 4 pm
Read more »
DMW bucks work suspension in NCRDESPITE the announcement from Malacañang, the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) on Friday, September 1, 2023, opened its offices in Mandaluyong City to overseas Filipino workers...
Read more »