Agricultural and other outdoor workers have always worked under hot conditions, but the effects of global warming are growing exposure to wildfire smoke and extreme heat.
Eduardo Garcia, a California Assembly member, introduced legislation this month to provide more protection for outdoor workers. The legislation would direct the Division of Occupational Health and Safety of California to strengthen air quality protections and develop a new heat standard.
Students in the California Environmental Legislation and Policy Clinic at UCLA School of Law supported the bill with their research. The clinic provides students with a unique chance to work on cutting-edge environmental issues and make connections with stakeholders, advocates, and legislative staffers.
The standard would include compulsory measures like access to shade structures and cool water when temperatures go over 105 degrees Fahrenheit, intensified monitoring for heat sickness, and work breaks.
If the bill gets passed, it would also direct the Division of Occupational Safety and Health to reduce the exposure of workers to harmful particulate matter pollution coming from wildfires and other sources.
Students in the clinic interviewed a dozen community groups that represent agricultural workers and studied existing federal and state laws in order to back the suggested standards.
In an interview with UCLA Newsroom, Julia Stein, project director at the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment and supervising attorney for the clinic, stated that the bill would aid in the protection of workers from conditions that are really oppressive.
Stein said that the bill would require the Division of Occupational Safety and Health to set an extreme heat standard that we haven’t seen in California yet. She also stated that the current air quality threshold is at a stage where the air is essentially unbreathable and that this will initiate protections for air quality much sooner.
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