After years of bureaucratic delays, the state board overseeing workplace safety standards was expected Thursday to adopt rules requiring employers to protect their workers from excessive heat in indoor workplaces.
Under the proposed rules, employers would have to provide cooling areas and monitor workers who take cooling breaks for signs of heat illness when indoor temperatures reach or exceed 82 degrees. If temperatures rise to 87 degrees, or workers are forced to work near hot equipment, employers will be tasked with taking additional safety precautions to either cool the wider work site, allocate more rest periods, rotate workers, or make other adjustments.
But in the hours before the Department of Industrial Relations' Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board opened its meeting in San Diego, state officials informed board members and labor groups that there would be no vote, leaving the thermal safety measure once again in limbo.
A Department of Industrial Relations spokesman said the decision to postpone the vote was made after state finance officials determined that more time was needed to analyze the potential financial impact of the proposed indoor heat treatment rules on public agencies.
“The Department of Industrial Relations and Cal/OSHA remain committed to indoor heat treatment and are evaluating options to enhance protection as soon as possible. We will continue to educate and protect workers from the effects of high temperatures,” the spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
Labor leaders and workers pushing for the new standard expressed anger at the delay.
“It is disgraceful that after years of advocacy, on the eve of a vote to pass the long-awaited heat standard, we learned that it was pulled from the agenda without advance notice or explanation,” said Lorena Gonzalez, president of the California Federation of Labor. , in a press release Thursday. “It is shameful that the state of California turns a blind eye to preventable workplace injuries and deaths.”
The move means workers in restaurants, schools, manufacturing, hospitals and warehouses “will continue to suffer every day they go without any real, enforceable protection from indoor heat exposure,” Gonzalez said.
A Department of Industrial Relations spokesperson said the agency will continue to investigate potential indoor heat violations under existing regulations such as the state's Injury and Disease Prevention Program, which broadly requires employers to evaluate workplace hazards and unsanitary conditions.
After David Thomas, who chairs the Standards Board, announced that the heat rules had been pulled from the board meeting agenda, anger arose among workers, union leaders and other labor advocates.
Victor Ramirez, who has worked at various warehouses in the Inland Empire over the past two decades, most recently at a facility in Fontana operated by Menasha Packaging, said many of the warehouses he worked in did not have air conditioners or fans. In recent years, fans and air conditioners have become more common, but “they're not very efficient and those warehouses still feel the heat,” he added.
At his current job, where he unloads goods packed by machines, Ramirez said he often feels like he is suffocating, his chest hurts, and he sweats especially near forklifts and other equipment that generates heat.
“We need to enforce this rule now. Workers need to be protected, they need to be trained so they know the dangers of the job and working in hot weather,” Ramirez said. “It is a basic right to work in a safe environment.”
At one point, some of the meeting attendees burst into chants: “What do we want? Heat protection. When we want? Now” and “Hey, ho ho, corporate greed has got to go.”
Thomas asked San Diego sheriff's deputies to intervene, and the protesters were told to disperse.
Board members also expressed frustration, saying they did not know why the vote was postponed.
Laura Stock, a board member and director of the Occupational Health Program at UC Berkeley, said she was frustrated to learn that officials from the Treasury Department decided at the eleventh hour that more time was needed to study the impact of the proposed rules. Especially in light of the years I've already spent studying this issue.
“The public is clearly angry. I and the other board members here are equally frustrated by what happened,” Stock said at the meeting. “It undermines the whole process of what we do here.”
In a surprise development, Thomas, who has said he supports the new rules, suggested that the Standards Board go ahead with the vote – if only as a symbolic gesture to signal their dissatisfaction with the Treasury's decision to withdraw its support for the new rules. Measure. The six board members voted unanimously to adopt the indoor temperature standard.
“We are pleased with the Standards Council’s courage today to do the right thing and vote to protect workers from rising temperatures,” Shahriar Kawasji, executive director of the Warehouse Workers Resource Center, said in an emailed statement. “The hottest years on record have occurred in the past 10 years. This means that the risk of working at high temperatures has become more acute in the time it has taken to finalize these standards.
Treasury Department approval of economic impact documents is among the final steps needed before heat rules can be formally approved and implemented.
The meeting was the latest in a series of errors and delays.
In 2006, California became the first state in the country to implement heat standards for outdoor workers, requiring employers to provide access to shade and water and guarantee the right to take protective cooling breaks when workers need them. In temperatures of 95 degrees or higher, employers are required to remind workers of safe practices, encourage breaks and hydration, and monitor them for signs or symptoms of heat illness.
As reports emerged of brutal conditions affecting the health of warehouse workers, the California Legislature in 2016 directed Cal/OSHA to develop an indoor temperature standard by 2019.
Agency staff met the deadline, drafting proposed rules that were based on existing outdoor heat regulations, but bureaucratic requirements and slow movement by various government agencies hampered the process in subsequent years.
For example, a proposed rule study that state law requires the Department of Finance to undertake slowed down when two contractors were hired to complete the same assessment — extending the process by at least a year and a half, according to a recent study. CalMatters report examines delays.
The Cal/OSHA Standards Board did not hold its first public hearing on indoor thermostat regulation until May 2023. At that hearing, workers urged the board to quickly adopt a set of safety rules, but the board instead revised the proposed measures three more times, delaying implementation for Another year.
Workers' compensation data shows that between 2010 and 2018, an average of 185 workers per year claimed indoor heat injuries, according to a 2021 report from the Rand Corp. Which analyzed the proposed internal temperature rules. In California, 20 workers died from heat illness between 2010 and 2017, seven of them from indoor heat, the report said.
In recent years, when the state has seen record heat waves, chefs at fast food chains, warehouse workers and delivery drivers have frequently raised concerns about rising temperatures.
In the midst of one heat wave in 2022, workers at Amazon's air cargo hub in San Bernardino took it upon themselves to document temperatures throughout the facility. Workers recorded internal temperatures of up to 89 inside the facility, rising to 96 in cargo planes and tractor trailers.
Mary-Kate McCarthy Paradis, an Amazon spokeswoman, called the results at the time “misleading, or simply inaccurate.”
In July 2023, workers at the center filed a formal complaint with Cal/OSHA. In January, Cal/OSHA fined Amazon $14,625 for failing to provide adequate water or shade for rest periods. The agency did not cite Amazon for safety violations inside.
Sarah Fee, a former warehouse worker at the San Bernardino facility, said during public comment at Thursday's meeting that she was deeply concerned about the impact of delaying implementation of the standard.
“I know that further delay will lead to injury and death this summer,” Fee said. Cal/OSHA is urged to take action. “Anything you can do to protect workers is needed.”
