In July of 2024, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), a subagency of the U.S. Department of Labor, proposed a worker-safety-excessive-heat rule. While five states have certain rules protecting certain workers from excessive heat, if finalized and enacted, OSHA’s rule would be the first national safety standard in the country’s history that attempts to tackle safety requirements for workers dealing with excessive heat. As it stands, the proposed rule applies to both outdoor workers (such as construction workers) when outdoor temperatures are at or above 90°F and indoor workers (such as kitchen staff) when working indoors at temperatures at or above 80°F.
Under the proposed rule, employers that have employees who fall into these two categories must develop a worksite monitoring plan called a Heat Injury and Illness Prevention Plan (HIIPP). For employers of qualifying outdoor workers, the HIIPP requires them to track local heat index forecasts. And for employers of qualifying indoor workers, the HIIPP requires them to identify work areas that have potential hazardous heat exposure and develop, with input from their workers, a monitoring plan for dangerous heat.
Some additional requirements of the proposed rule include:
- When the heat index is at 80°F or higher
- providing qualifying workers easy access to “suitably cool,” drinking water sufficient for one quart of water per hour per worker; and
- providing qualifying outdoor workers breaks in areas that block direct sunlight and are open to outside air that have either:
- Artificial shade such as a tent or pavilion or
- Natural shade such as trees or
- Air-conditioning in an enclosed space
- providing breaks to qualifying indoor workers in an area such as a break room that has air conditioning or at least “increased air movement” and possibly a dehumidifier.
- When the heat index is at 90°F or higher
- Providing mandatory 15 minute breaks at least every two hours (unpaid meal break qualifies as a mandatory break) in the break areas as stated above, and
- Implementing a system to look for signs and symptoms of heat-related illness.
- When indoor work areas “regularly exceed 120°F[,]” employers must place “legible, visible, and understandable” warning signs at those work areas, which seems to indicate that such signs must be in a language other than English if workers are not fluent in English.
Finally of note, employers with qualifying indoor work areas must follow a recordkeeping requirement of “hav[ing] written or electronic records of those indoor work area measurements and retain those records for 6 months.”
The Biden Administration has publicized the proposed rule as the proper response to “extreme weather” caused by climate change to protect approximately 36 million workers. The proposed rule is expected to be published in the Federal Register soon for comments and to be opposed by numerous industries and associations such as the Chamber of Commerce.
