Biden Proposes Protecting Workers from Extreme Heat and Their Own State Governments

“This regulation will save lives,” one union leader said.

by Yaseen al-Sheikh, More Perfect Union

With each year that passes, extreme heat is becoming a more persistent and more deadly phenomenon in the American workplace, killing thousands of Americans and dozens of people on the job each year. 

In response to these developments, the Biden administration released a rule this week that would establish the first-ever federal safety standards for how businesses ought to provide water and mandatory breaks to workers during extreme weather events.

The decision comes as lawmakers in Texas and Florida, two of the hottest states in the country, have not only failed to pass protections for workers but rewritten the law to prevent local governments from implementing their own. 

“Every worker should come home safe and healthy at the end of the day, which is why the Biden-Harris administration is taking this significant step to protect workers from the dangers posed by extreme heat,” Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su said in a statement Tuesday. “As the most pro-worker administration in history, we are committed to ensuring that those doing difficult work in some of our economy’s most critical sectors are valued and kept safe in the workplace.” 

The administration’s standards would be binding to all fifty states, and mark a significant step forward for those fighting for safety and dignity as the effects of climate change worsen over time. 

The regulations have already met pushback from industry giants and corporate lobbyists even before implementation. The Construction Industry Safety Coalition, a bloc of lobbying firms and trade associations, has repeatedly asked that construction workers, some of the employees most endangered by heat stress, be carved out. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce said in a public comment in 2022 that it’s “extraordinarily difficult for [businesses] to determine when heat presents a hazard because each employee experiences heat differently” and suggested it would pursue legal action if the regulation went into effect. 

But unions back the measure. “This regulation will save lives,” Sean McGarvey, president of North America’s Building Trades Unions, told the New York Times. “The families of people who lose their lives to heat illness don’t see this as an overly burdensome regulation.”

The proposed regulations would see incremental changes to the responsibilities of employers relative to what the heat index in a workplace is at any given time. Once it reaches 80F under the heat index, increased access to water on the job site and the presence of break rooms with temperature controls would become necessary. At 90F, workers would be entitled to a paid 15-minute break every two hours they work and be issued hazard alerts. Fines for breaking these rules, currently maxed out at $16,000, would be raised and made more rigorous in their active enforcement.

The administration is also expected to allocate around $1 billion in new spending to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for building weather-resistant structures for communities in dire need of it.

Officials from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration said in a call with reporters on Tuesday morning that the new standards would impact up to 36 million workers throughout the United States, and that it’d apply to workers in the delivery and mail industry as well as the construction and agricultural industries. Many also anticipate that these changes could be quickly reversed by Donald Trump if he were to win the presidency in the upcoming national elections in November.

As for now, the announcement has been met with high praise from progressive lawmakers and labor leaders across the country who have been lobbying for improvements to the protections for workers in extreme weather conditions. Rep. Greg Casar, a Democrat from Texas, held a “thirst strike” last year with Texas workers at the U.S. Capitol in protest of the Texas legislation. He praised the Biden administration’s move this week. 

“For decades, workers have been organizing for federal protections from the extreme heat,” Casar said in a statement. “[Texas Gov.] Greg Abbott tried to take rest breaks away from everyday Texans, but now we’re one step closer to securing heat protections for all Americans on the job.”