What's up with California's indoor heat rule?
An answer to a question you didn't know you had, I'm sure.
Welcome to Work Climate, where I write about whatever I find interesting and not too difficult to research! This month, we’re returning to a favorite topic of mine: What governments, workers, and advocates can do to prevent people from falling ill, getting injured, and dying while working in the heat.
Most reporting about heat exposure on the job focuses on outdoor work, which makes some sense: there are plenty of horrible stories of agricultural and construction workers dying on hot days. Often lost in this coverage, though, is the fact that millions more people in the United States work indoors than outdoors, and that many indoor workers also face debilitating climatic conditions — think about running around a warehouse without AC.
It is unfortunate, then, that even states that have heat protection measures in place have focused so far on outdoor work,1 and, if we ever get a federal standard, it likely will, too. California, however, is about to break that trend.
In 2016, California lawmakers directed the state’s health and safety agency, Cal/OSHA, to develop a standard on heat illness prevention in indoor workplaces by 2019. Then 2019 came and went and…nothing happened. As climate change has continued to hurt the state, however, pressure has grown on Cal/OSHA from labor and environmental groups to fulfill its mandate.
Industry opposition has been fierce throughout this process, with employers both claiming that they already keep their indoor workers safe (though many workers beg to differ), and that compliance would be too costly (despite a report finding that “employers would save money because the rule would cut indoor workplace heat injuries by 40% by 2030”2). Yet finally, earlier this year, it appeared that Cal/OSHA was poised to pass a first-of-its-kind indoor heat regulation. But then our silver-haired governor pulled some truly wild shit.
I learned about this saga from great reporting by Jeanne Kuang at CalMatters:
The rule was expected to be finally voted into place by the Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board at a meeting this morning in San Diego. But Wednesday night, state officials ordered that it be pulled from the agenda after Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration suddenly withdrew a required stamp of approval, saying it learned the rule would cost state prisons much more money than anticipated.
… Members [of Cal/OSHA] said during the meeting that they had been “blindsided,” that the move to pull the agenda item was “a slap in the face” and that workers in numerous other industries such as warehouses, manufacturing and restaurants had waited long enough.
It now looks like the state will soon pass the rule, while excluding workers in state and local jails and prisons, which is…yeah, not great. And telling that it would cost the state “billions more dollars” than anticipated to provide adequate ventilation and cooling where incarcerated people labor for pennies.
In the meantime, will this effort help other California workers beat the heat?
Oakland-based Worksafe has led efforts to improve Cal/OSHA’s draft regulation by, for instance, advocating for its protections to kick in at a lower threshold — currently, the following would be required at 82 degrees:
Employees must have access to potable water
Cool-down areas must be made available to employees
Employers must implement and follow certain emergency procedures
New employees must go through an acclimation process to help them adjust to the temperatures
Employees must be trained on safety rules and procedures
By comparison, California’s outdoor heat standards kick in at 80 degrees, with more stringent requirements applying when the temperature tops 95.
A reasonable concern raised by both employers and employees, then, is that inconsistency in the rules could create confusion, especially for workers who cycle in and out of outdoor and indoor work throughout the day, like those who labor in greenhouses. But an even more pressing issue is enforcement.
Cal/OSHA has an over 30% vacancy rate and only two employees who investigate worker deaths throughout the entire state. So, even though the agency’s enforcement authority is quite strong on paper, there’s good reason to think that heat-related investigations will remain lax across the board.
As has become a theme in this newsletter, then, I end with ambivalence and pretension; as is often true, legal change here is necessary, but not sufficient.
To be clear, outdoor workers still need far more protection. Consider Florida, where the legislature passed a law protecting athletes from excessive heat, following the tragic death of a high school football player. In the same session, though, the state failed to pass similar protections for outdoor workers, a contrast with clear class and racial undertones. Then, to make matters worse, Ron DeSantis signed a bill blocking municipalities like Miami-Dade County from stepping into this arena, in an echo of Texas’ attempt (currently snarled in the courts) to stop blue cities from mandating water breaks and other worker-friendly measures.
It is somewhat a mystery to me why more trade groups don’t recognize that most heat protection measures are in their long-term economic interests. To wit:
“A 2021 study of 18 years of California workers’ compensation records found that the risk of all workplace injuries was five to seven percent higher when the temperature was between 85 and 90 degrees. When temperatures were over 100 degrees, the overall risk of injuries was 10 to 15 percent greater.”
Injuries at work cost both in productivity and workers’ compensation claims. It should be both economical and moral, therefore, to keep workers healthy, no?
Eminently sensible, reasonable, and fair rules—especially (based on what I have read here before): “New employees must go through an acclimation process to help them adjust to the temperatures.”