California Indoor Heat Protections: Update
by Stephen Knight
The state of California is poised to have groundbreaking indoor heat regulations in place in the next few months. Or weeks, as the case may be. This is a significant and long overdue moment for workplace protection, and an example for the nation where Federal OSHA has been struggling for 50 years to advance similar heat rules.
The Heat Illness Prevention in Indoor Places of Employment regulation was supposed to be approved on March 21 but got derailed by administration objections over the reported fiscal impact on the State Department of Corrections. Advocates and OSH Standards Board members were taken aback by the last minute Intervention that disrupted the rulemaking process and potentially undermined the prospect of having rules in place this year.
Administration officials committed to getting the rules back on track and eventually delivered with a revised standard to the Standards Board for a June 20th vote, but with the Department of Corrections explicitly exempted from any indoor heat protections.
In the interim, however, the Governor moved to dismiss a leading worker health and safety expert and advocate from the Standards Board, Laura Stock, and he demoted the longstanding chair, Dave Thomas, both of whom were outspoken at the March meeting about their concerns over the administration’s disruption of the process. The Department of Finance has refused to disclose the basis for this decision.
What happens next? The State Office of Administrative Law (OAL) has 30 days to review the final regulation and approve it to become the law. Current state practice is to issue new regulations on a quarterly basis, which would mean a further delay until October 1. It seems that the administration, the Standards Board, and Cal/OSHA are asking OAL to expedite its review for good cause, in order to provide protections to California workers suffering right now from extraordinary heat this summer. These rules were supposed to be in place in 2019, and then again by March 2024, and yet still they remain pending and not in force. Meanwhile, business and industry groups continue to voice strong objections and may be planning to sue to stop these heat rules from coming into force.
The proposed standard is a significant step forward in protecting workers from heat-related illnesses and injuries. But Worksafe is deeply concerned that corrections, detentions and juvenile facilities have been excluded. The Department of Corrections alone employs over 57,000 staff across 35 institutions, including correctional officers, healthcare professionals, and maintenance staff. These workers are at risk of heat exhaustion and dehydration due to working in archaic, poorly ventilated buildings with little protection from temperatures which will only worsen in coming years.
Incarcerated workers are employees under California Labor Code and are subject to the same workplace safety regulations as any other employee. Excluding corrections facilities from the heat standard will only exacerbate the unique challenges and hazards they face. In early July a prisoner died from apparent heat exposure at Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla.
It remains to be seen when and to what extent workers in California’s state prisons will ever be protected from indoor heat.
