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.