Trump likely to abandon Biden’s plan to protect workers from extreme heat, experts say

Just one day after a new Florida law took effect this summer that forbids local governments from passing local heat safety protections for workers, the Biden administration announced a new federal rule that would, for the first time, create a federal standard for heat safety in the workplace nationwide.

The rule, first proposed by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration in 2021, seeks to protect millions of workers from the dangers of extreme heat on the job. It would require employers to provide basic needs, such as water and rest breaks, when temperatures exceed certain thresholds. Altogether, it could strengthen heat safety protections for roughly 35 million private-sector and federal workers in Florida who face increasingly oppressive temperatures during the year’s hottest months.

But that’s only if it sees the light of day. The rule will only go into effect if it is finalized by OSHA, the federal agency that enforces workplace health and safety rules. Under an administration run by President-elect Donald Trump, however, experts aren’t confident that this will happen. Employer-side law firms, like Fisher Phillips, expect the rule will simply “melt away” in what is expected to be a more business-friendly political environment.

“The easiest thing that could happen, and probably the most likely, is they’ll just not work on it at all,” Jordan Barab, a former deputy assistant secretary of labor for OSHA under the Obama administration, told Orlando Weekly. “It’ll just sit there and kind of molder, you know, for the next few years, and not progress at all.”

Under Trump’s first stint in the White House, the Trump administration scaled back on federal inspections of worksites for health and safety violations, and the number of federal inspectors employed by OSHA dropped from from 952 in 2016 to 862 by January 2020. Inspectors are tasked with overseeing millions of U.S. worksites, and in states like Florida — which doesn’t have a state agency to enforce workplace safety rules — they’re the only enforcement mechanism around.

Not waiting around for politicians to take action

Ernesto Ruiz, a researcher for the Farmworker Association of Florida, told Orlando Weekly his organization is “very concerned” the incoming Trump administration will put an end to the Biden administration’s heat safety proposal, “thus ensuring that our most valuable and vulnerable workers, those deemed ‘essential’ during the COVID-19 pandemic, will continue to experience unjust and inhumane working conditions.”

“Their exploitation will continue so that greedy agro-industries continue to maximize their earnings, with little to no regard of the toll their greed has on communities throughout the country,” Ruiz said in a statement. Based in Central Florida, the Farmworker Association is a membership-based organization of over 10,000 Hispanic, Haitian and African American members who organize around social and economic justice issues affecting Florida’s diverse agricultural workforce.

And while the group supported the Biden administration’s proposal and has advocated for state-level protections in the state Legislature, the FAF also isn’t waiting for politicians to protect them.

Ruiz said the organization already distributes long-sleeve shirts and bandanas to farm and nursery workers in local communities who labor outside, to protect them from UV radiation and harmful pesticides. They hold heat-stress workshops to inform workers and community members about the dangers of heat illness, signs and symptoms, and steps to take if someone is suffering from a heat-related illness or injury. They’re not waiting for their employers to protect them, either.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 479 workers in the U.S. died from environmental heat exposure from 2011 to 2022. From 2011 to 2020, the agency identified an estimated 33,890 work-related heat injuries and illnesses that resulted in days off work.

Such fatal injuries occur close to home. Last September, a 26-year-old man from Mexico — legally working in the U.S. under the government’s H-2A program for temporary workers — died of heat-related causes while working on a sugarcane farm in South Florida. An investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor found that the young man’s death was preventable, and could have been avoided if the employer had established rules to protect workers against heat-related hazards.

“This young man’s life ended on his first day on the job because his employer did not fulfill its duty to protect employees from heat exposure, a known and increasingly dangerous hazard,” said OSHA Area Director Condell Eastmond in a statement. According to OSHA, 50 to 70 percent of heat-related deaths occur during the first week of work, since workers haven’t yet acclimated to the heat.

“More workers will die,” predicted former OSHA official Jordan Barab. “It’s that simple.”

Beyond just the risk of death, Ruiz adds that chronic extreme heat exposure can also lead to kidney disease, and cause other quality-of-life issues for workers. Someone who’s grown exhausted after a long day toiling under the sun will have less energy, less patience to spend time with family at home.

Ruiz doesn’t expect any action from Florida legislators at the state level next year.
“Florida is and has been an anti-worker state, so I don’t see any reason why the state government wouldn’t continue their anti-immigrant, anti-worker and pro-big business policies.”

The stakes of abandoning protective rules at the federal level are also high. If the Biden administration’s proposed rule is neglected, “More workers will die,” predicted Barab, who also formerly worked on workplace safety issues for the labor union AFSCME. “It’s that simple.”

A historic effort could be left in the dust

Although there is a general rule that OSHA enforces requiring employers to provide a workplace “free from recognized hazards” likely to cause serious injury or death, there is no federal workplace standard specific to extreme heat and heat-related illness.

Just six states in the country — California, Colorado, Washington, Oregon, Maryland and Minnesota — have established some form of statewide workplace heat safety regulation to protect workers from extreme heat.

Florida, one of the hottest states, is not one of them. And in effect, this leaves people such as construction workers, theme park workers and agricultural workers subject to whatever protections their individual employer deigns to offer — unless they’re represented by a union that can secure legally binding commitments on workplace safety, that is, but the majority of workers in Florida (94 percent) are not.

A recent report from the progressive Florida Policy Institute found that Florida has the highest numbers of heat-related illness in the U.S., based on the number of emergency room visits and hospitalizations in the state related to extreme heat. Three Orange County students at Ocoee Middle School were reportedly hospitalized in early September for heat-related illness, an incident attributed to a faulty air-conditioning system at the school.

Leadership for the local teachers’ union has said this is a chronic problem that the school district has ignored, or otherwise failed to sufficiently address, despite the danger posed to both school staff and students.

“We’ve had entire schools where the AC is not working. And right now we’re in a situation where teachers can’t open their doors or their windows because of security,” said Orange County Classroom Teachers Association president Clinton McCracken at a recent press conference, referencing a new law approved by state lawmakers. “We have students who are too hot, not just teachers.”

There’s not much action by state lawmakers to address this occupational hazard either. Florida’s Republican-controlled Legislature in recent years has either rejected or otherwise ignored proposals for statewide heat safety rules in the past, and this year passed a law (HB 433) that prohibits local governments from establishing any sort of mandatory protective measures at the county or city level.

The bill was backed by business groups like the Chamber of Commerce, the Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association, and the Associated Builders and Contractors, whose chief lobbyist described it as a top priority for the “business community.”

“I haven’t texted you in weeks — HEAT cannot die,” lobbyist Carol Bowen wrote in a text to the Florida House’s chief of staff on March 7, the night before the end of the 2024 legislative session. “The entire business community is in lock step on this.”

Labor and immigrant advocacy groups such as the Florida AFL-CIO, the Farmworker Association of Florida, and WeCount! opposed the bill, and called on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to veto it after its passage.

“The industry argument against local worker protection ordinances is that employers are already protecting their workers,” a letter signed by 44 organizations, and sent to DeSantis ahead of his approval of the bill, reads. “If this is the case, then, why are industry leaders concerned about a bill that can protect those workers whose employers may not be providing those protections? What is business afraid of if they are already doing the right thing?”

DeSantis, nonetheless, sided with the business community and signed it into law without offering any sort of statement. The law prohibits local governments from passing laws that mandate employers to address heat safety as well as fair scheduling, effective July 1, and will prohibit local officials from establishing or enforcing local living wage laws, effective Sept. 30, 2026.

The federal heat safety rule proposed by the Biden administration has similarly faced opposition from business groups like the Chamber of Commerce, which often oppose mandatory regulatory measures that aim to benefit working people — like minimum wage increases and workplace safety rules — describing such measures as burdensome or unnecessary. Many Republicans in Congress have also voiced opposition to the proposal, with one Republican describing it to Politico’s E&E News as “idiotic.”

As it stands, the proposed heat rule is still subject to public input. A public comment period for the rule opened in September and will close Dec. 31. Barab, the former OSHA official, said it could take another one to two years to finalize the rule after that. By that point, of course, Trump will have returned to the White House.

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This article appears in Nov 13-19, 2024.