When disaster strikes, can you take the day off?
As with everything in law and life, it depends.
Hello, and welcome to this “home for the holidays” edition of Work Climate! I’m David, and I’m very grateful to everyone here who has contributed to this experiment in learning through writing so far. This marks my tenth post, having explored topics ranging from Texas’ attempt to preempt local water break guarantees to how workers in more insulated jobs are helping combat fossil fuel use. And there’s much more I plan on getting into in the new year!
To round out 2023, though, I’m interested in what happens when climate-fueled disasters directly threaten people at work. I’ve already written a fair bit about the impacts of heat — and will certainly return to it — so I’ll focus here on more commonly recognized hazards: hurricanes and smoke from fires.
Central Florida Jobs with Justice has documented how, even when the state issues hurricane evacuations orders, many employers insist their employees show up for work. According to a survey after Hurricane Irma — which killed over 100 people — more than half of low-wage workers interviewed said they faced discipline or termination if they did not work during the storm. This “impossible choice between protecting their lives or protecting their jobs” prompted the Miami-Dade County Board of Supervisors to pass an ordinance prohibiting such retaliation, a positive development. Still, there are over 38 million people in the United States laboring in climate-vulnerable conditions. Where can they turn if their local governments are not as responsive?
The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, grants workers the “freedom to withdraw from a workplace environment that [they] reasonably believe is highly dangerous.” This right to refuse dangerous work is limited, though, by stringent and vague requirements, including assessing whether law’s infamous “reasonable person” would agree there is an imminent danger of death or serious injury.
After a tornado killed 6 Amazon employees in an Illinois warehouse, Rep. Cori Bush introduced legislation which would further protect workers who walk off the job during disasters. Absent such a fix becoming federal law, however, states and municipalities must step up further. In 2022, California passed a bill prohibiting employers “from taking or threatening adverse action against any employee for refusing to report to, or leaving, a workplace” because of their reasonable fear of an emergency condition. Even this measure comes up short, though, vis-à-vis an increasingly common hazard which presents an ongoing, rather than acute, threat to workers’ health and safety: smoke.
When there’s smoke, but you don’t want to get fired…
The 2018 wildfire season in California was historically awful: Over 100 people perished in the flames and the state incurred $150 billion in damage. But the silent killer was the lingering effects of smoke inhalation, which is now associated with over 3,600 additional deaths. I had just moved to the Bay Area and remember needing to use an N95 mask just to stave off nausea during short walks outside. It’s hard for me to imagine what it would be like to work outdoors for hours in those conditions without proper protection. But that is exactly the situation hundreds of thousands of agricultural workers routinely face in the state. Per Liza Gross with Inside Climate News:
Exposure to wildfire smoke is a growing threat to farmworkers, many of whom are forced to toil through fires that are not just more frequent and severe but more toxic than ever. And as each year brings bigger and more destructive fires, scientists are scrambling to identify all the chemicals in smoke and the risks they pose. . . .
Unable to afford to lose even a day’s pay, many work[] without protective gear like N95 respirators, in dangerously unhealthy air, because heavy smoke linger[s] over the fields for several weeks. Others los[e] wages when farms temporarily ceased operations, then resume[] work as soon as they [can]. . . .
Fine particulate matter, or PM2.5, causes a range of harmful effects: It irritates the eyes, nose and lungs, aggravates asthma and other respiratory illnesses and increases the risk of death from lung cancer and heart disease.
Rep. Barbara Lee, Oakland’s OG, has introduced legislation to give outdoor workers — including those in agriculture, construction, and delivery services — “smoke leave” and other labor protections during wildfires. But, as with Rep. Bush’s bill mentioned above, such a federal safeguard seems aspirational.
Into the breach, workers and allied advocates have made this issue a priority in Sonoma County, the heart of both California’s wine and wildfire country. The organizing coalition North Bay Jobs with Justice (NBJWJ) successfully pushed for the establishment of a multi-million dollar disaster fund to pay vineyard workers in the county who miss work during storms and fires. NBJWJ is now working to expand on this victory by pushing vineyard owners to guarantee hazard pay premiums when workers labor in smoky conditions.
Ideally, only workers in essential roles would be outside when the Air Quality Index is over 150, at which point the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (NCOSH) says “breathing outdoor air is dangerous for everyone.” But California wine is a multi-billion dollar industry, and those grapes of wrath won’t pick themselves off the vine, so such fights must continue.
Environmental safety at work, as with so many topics this little blog has touched upon, intertwines with many fundamental injustices in our economy: The exploitation of low-wage, minority, and undocumented workers. The lack of legal safeguards and adequate enforcement from federal and state agencies. The disproportionate impacts of the climate crisis on already marginalized communities. This is not the cheeriest note to end the year on, but thank you again for reading and pushing me to think more clearly about these issues: creminsdavid@gmail.com and the comments below are open!
Another eye-opening edition. It really is astonishing (though I know I shouldn’t be surprised) that people have to struggle to get no-brainer, basic protections.