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| It appears that some industries really don't care if low wage workers die in climate change driven, worsening heat waves. |
The headline is infuriating enough: "As Temperatures rise, Industries Fight Heat Safeguards For Workers."
Basically, the gist of the article is this: Many employers don't give a crap if some of their workers die of heat stroke. They figure they can just hire somebody else to replace them. No biggie, apparently.
The Washington Post article starts out with an introduction to Sandra Ascencia, a South Florida plant nursery worker who once spent a week in the hospital from work-related heat stroke and once saw the body of a coworker in a parking lot, dead from heat stroke.
"Today, she belongs to a growing group of immigrant laborers in South Florida pushing for what for what many health experts say is the best way to prevent heatstroke as temperatures reach new extremes: A law requiring employers to provide outdoor workers with drinking water, shade and rest breaks on hot days."
Wait, what? Outdoor workers aren't entitled to drinking water, shade and rest breaks on hot days?
Ascencio goes on, as quoted in the Washington Post:
"'We're seeing temperatures above 100 degrees,' said Ascencio, 50. 'We meet workers who tell us bosses don't give them even 10 or 15 minute breaks. They know it's inhumane to work under these conditions but they have to pay their bills.'"
Ascencio is being Captain Obvious here, but you wouldn't know it from many industry leaders who say we shouldn't worry about heat stroke killing workers. My cynical side says some employers figure that workers, many of the POC and immigrants, are just cogs that are easily replaced, kind of like a part that breaks in a machine. To them, these workers aren't really human, so what's the big deal?
Unless workplace safety rules are finally enacted, all this will keep getting worse. Climate change is making summers hotter and in many cases more humid. It is becoming more and more untenable to work in our worsening heat waves.
The Washington Post says some states, like California and Washington, have enacted laws to protect workers from heat exposure. But in many other states, attempts to pass similar laws were killed or weakened by industry lobbyists.
The Biden administration is also enacting rules to protect workers from excessive heat. At last check an OHSA vote on these rules has been delayed several times, so the fate is unknown.
The rules are needed nationwide. An investigation by NPR and Columbia Journalism Investigations released in the summer of 2021 indicated 384 people in the U.S. died of work-related heat exposure in the last decade.
This problem is bound to get worse without reforms, as a worsening climate crisis is intensifying and prolonging both extreme heat and humidity.
The reaction from several industries has been beyond callous regarding safety rules for heat.
Here's some choice WAPO quotes on this, followed of course with my eye roll that can probably be seen from Neptune.
"Victoria Carreon, an administrator at the Nevada Department of Business and Industry, said the agency is in talks with industry groups about the burdens on businesses of having to implement regulations."
Yeah, like it's absolutely impossible for any business to provide enough water or workers and make sure they receive a break in a cool environment every once in awhile.
Oh, and here's this gem from the National Cotton Council:
"The National Cotton Council wrote that many heat related issues are not caused by farm work or poor management 'but instead result from the modern employee lifestyle in an advanced 21st century global economy.' The group pinned workers' inability to withstand high temperatures on 'present day luxuries such as air conditioning and Americans' sendentary lifestyle.'"
Hear that kiddies? Cotton pickers aren't dying or getting dangerously sick from extreme heat. They're actually a bunch of wusses who are so completely lazy that they seek out air conditioning when they are off work and overheated. The selfishness of those cotton workers! They should be miserable 24/7! Never mind that heat is dangerous to cotton pickers whether or not they have access to air conditioning during their off hours.
In Oregon, trade groups for the timber and manufacturing interests are saying that heat rules would regulate "a societal hazard rather than an occupational hazard."
In other words, it's hot. Deal with it. Never mind that the workers in question would not willingly go out and kill themselves in the heat in their off hours.
In Virginia, Juley Fulcher, a worker health advocate for nonprofit Public Citizen said she was infuriated when one business representative told her, "If we give them breaks, it costs us money."
Fulcher said her reaction was "If you don't give them breaks, they die and that costs you money, too."
By the way, A United States farm worker is 35 times more likely to die from heat related problems that people toiling in other industries, according to Fast Company and Nexus News Media. Heat is also responsible for 170,000 heat related injuries.
I'm guessing here that for many of these industries, this has nothing to do with ethics, morals, or humanity. To their minds, keeping employees alive in heat waves is more expensive than disposing of the dead ones and replacing them. I'm being pretty blunt here, but that's what it seems to boil down to.
Pretty demonic, but there you go.
Of course, if we insist on talking just dollars and completely ignore humanity and morality, there is more that should be of interest to the billionaire overlords who want to rake in more dough.
On NPR's Planet Money, they recently made a good case that workplace heat regulations would actually save industries money.
David Metz a senior quantitative analyst at the RAND Corporation, laid it out for Planet Money.
Metz crunched some numbers and concluded work place heat regulations in California would cost industry $100 million a year. Yeah, that is a lot of money but consider that California is a big state.
However, the same businesses that would lose that $100 million through regulation would also save $200 million, mostly through better worker productivity. Which seems obvious. A worker who isn't about to keel over from the heat will probably do a better job.
As Planet Money explains, worker injuries increase when it's too hot. Decision making and cognition wilt in the heat too.
So heat regulations in the workplace are a win-win, right? Then why aren't employers embracing this idea?
Metz theorized businesses this cost/benefit ratio hasn't dawned on the Powers That Be because it just never crossed their minds. Metz charitable toward these managers with this assessment, but I'm a lot more skeptical.
The managers - the bad ones, anyway - never thought about this because they never wanted to. To them, who cares about employee safety? They just want to make money.
My whole screed here isn't an indictment of capitalism in general. It's a howl of disgust over the fact that many no longer regard capitalism as a system that at least has the potential to lift all boats. It's instead a game of which billionaire can vacuum up more cash and impoverish and exploit the greatest number of people.
We thought the last Gilded Age in the 1800s was bad enough. In some respects, the current one seems even worse.
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