Extreme heat is becoming more common across the U.S. The federal government and employers owe workers better safety measures
 

For decades, U.S. workers, unions, workers’ centers and allies have found innovative ways to challenge corporate power. The reality of rising temperatures is a new test.

The actions announced last week by President Biden to protect workers from extreme heat – including ramped up enforcement for heat safety violations and increased inspections in high-risk industries – are a modest step in the right direction.

Tragically, workers are getting sick and dying from the extreme heat driven by climate change. This is no time for modest steps. The President, Congress, federal OSHA and state and local officials must take bold action, now, to reduce risk and save lives.

We must urgently pursue decarbonizing our economy, with a fully-funded just transition to ensure job and income security for affected workers. But workers cannot wait while this process unfolds and we are not helpless in the face of the triple-digit temperatures that are breaking thermometers all over the globe.  Heat stroke and heat illness, like other occupational hazards, is preventable.

Celeste Monforton and Jane M. VonBergen’s book,On the Job: The UntoldStory of Worker Centers and the New Fight for Wages, Dignity, and Health, captures the story of workers fed up with toiling in dangerous jobs for paltry pay and of being forced to choose between their health and well-being or putting food on their table. It tells the story of a workforce not protected by a union collective bargaining agreement but able to assert its collective power through a growing part of the labor movement:worker centers. Worker centers began to emerge in the late 1970s and early1980s, led by Black worker activists inNorth Carolina and South Carolina and immigrant activists in New York City and along the Texas–Mexico border. As of late 2021 they had grown to number over 246, funded by a combination of foundations, government, earned income, grassroots fundraising, and dues.

Jessica James didn’t have to die. 

Last year, James was killed three months short of her thirty-third birthday at FedEx’s World Hub in Memphis, Tennessee. The forklift she was driving flipped over, crushing her underneath. 

Her death was no unforeseeable freak accident. James was driving on a metal ramp to deliver a load of packages into a FedEx truck. Weeks earlier, an inspection found that the ramp was damaged, with a cracked surface and repairs needed on its tires and bolts. 

On April 28, 2023, communities across the U.S. will come together for Workers’ Memorial Day to mourn workers killed on the job and advocate for safer working conditions. 

Workers’ Memorial Day commemorates the enactment of the federal Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA), promising every worker the fundamental right to a safe job. The law’s passage in 1970 resulted from the tireless efforts of workers, unions and social justice activists who organized for safer working conditions and demanded action from the government to protect working people. 

We sat down with National COSH’s Co-Executive Director Jessica E. Martinez to learn how they commemorate workers on April 28 and the week leading up to this day.

Should a thirteen-year-old be working a hazardous job at night?

Packers Sanitation Services Inc. apparently thinks so. In 2022, the company hired a thirteen-year-old child from Guatemala as a night shift cleaner at a Grand Island, Nebraska meatpacking plant. The facility is owned by JBS, one of the world’s largest food companies.

The girl’s employment “came to an abrupt end after a nurse at Walnut Middle School found chemical burns, blisters and open wounds on her hands and one knee,” The Washington Post reported. The injuries arose from exposure to hazardous chemicals used to clean the blood, fat and animal parts that remain after a day on the killing floor. 

“We had no money,” recalls Derrick Palmer. “We didn’t have advice. All we had was two tables and two tents. We said: ‘You know what, let’s do a worker-led movement. Let’s just shoot our shot.’”

Palmer, who works at Amazon’s JFK8 warehouse on Staten Island, is vice president for organizing for the independent Amazon Labor Union (ALU). He and his co-workers shocked the world in March of 2022, when a grassroots operation, funded and organized by workers themselves, beat back an aggressive anti-worker campaign from one of the world’s largest and wealthiest corporations to establish the first-ever labor union at one of Amazon’s U.S. facilities.

A shattered arm. A cover-up of safety violations. Workers dying, with minimal penalties for employers.

That’s the kind of testimony rank-and-file workers and safety advocates brought to Washington DC last week. The occasion was a first-ever Workers’ Voice Summit, convened by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the federal agency responsible for workplace safety.

“When we come together, we can win” was the rallying call by Dr. Linda Rae Murray that launched the 10th annual National Conference on Worker Safety and Health (COSHCON2021) in December.

Our growing movement for safe and fair workplaces is at a pivotal moment. Workers and families are confronting a deadly pandemic; heat stress, extreme weather, and abuse and indifference from unfair employers.