YES, IT IS HOT AS HELL FOR WORKERS

Weather apps and common sense advise us not to work outdoors during the hotter parts of our day. Is the State of Texas concerned about heat injuries?

For years, industry has addressed worker safety as a partnership between workers, contractors, OSHA, state and local government agencies. This partnership has reduced worker hazards of every sort and resulted in drastically reduced worker injuries and deaths.

Heat stress and heat stroke in the workplace is as lethal a hazard as falling from heights, or being crushed by machinery. At work locations where extreme temperatures are the rule, especially in the summer, contractors have a duty to look out for deadly heat hazards. Extreme weather affects the nation, and nowhere is this hazard as present as in the southern United States. Texas has been experiencing triple digit temperatures for weeks now. Why has the Texas government chosen to undo years of progress in worker safety by prohibiting local communities from regulating work breaks to protect workers from heat stress and heat stroke?

In the triple digit temperatures in which construction workers toil, drinking water frequently and resting in the shade are minimum safety measures to avoid heat injuries and deaths. But these measures are not applied at every jobsite. And as workers suffer from heat stress they become disoriented and increasingly unable to separate themselves from the hazard, they collapse from overheating and are injured, sometimes fatally.

In many worksites the workers are supplied to contractors by “patrones”. These labor bosses are subcontractors or sub-subcontractors to the company that has been commissioned to do the work, especially in the area of home building and maintenance. Adherence to safety standards such as hardhats; work gloves; eye and hearing protection; and fall-protection safety belt systems and scaffolding are frequently not provided. Protection from heat injuries is also absent.

The workforce frequently speaks poor or no English and workers are afraid to demand the safety protections that they deserve as human beings. Heat hazards are not limited to the construction industry nor to outdoor occupations. Agriculture; landscaping; food preparation; and the government, industrial and manufacturing sectors have similar conditions hazardous to workers.

Annual deaths from heat injuries surpass those from floods, tornadoes and hurricanes, and Texas has the preventable dark reputation of being a leader in the death count.

Why does Texas remove the safeguards of last resort that cities and municipalities can provide when labor contractors fail to provide safe work environments?

The link below is worth clicking if you care about your fellow human beings, especially those forced to work to feed themselves and their families, who fear that by demanding safe work places they will be subject to retaliation and potential job loss. It provides details on protection from heat stress and heat stroke that individuals, businesses and government agencies can implement immediately: Limited regulations make Texas workers responsible for preventing on-the-job heat injuries.