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The stifling heat inside some warehouses where workers might spend 10-hour days isnt just a summer problem. In Southern California, it can feel like summer all year.

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Its easy to break into a sweat and grow tired, workers say. The ventilation feels inconsistent, they say, and workers have testified in a public hearing about nosebleeds, nausea, and dizziness. In some warehouses, the walk to find a place to cool down is at least half a mile.

We are in constant motion. Throughout the day, my shirt is soaked in sweat three to four times, said Sara Fee, a former worker at an Amazon warehouse in San Bernardino, California, who testified before a state workplace safety board in May. I have been nauseous, dizzy.

As the climate warms and the threat of extreme heat spreads, California is poised to protect people who work in poorly ventilated warehouses, steamy restaurant kitchens, and other indoor job sites where temperatures can soar to potentially dangerous levels. The state has had heat standards on the books for outdoor workers since 2005, and indoor workplaces are next.

Only two other states, Minnesota and Oregon, have adopted heat rules for indoor workers, according to the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Nationally, legislation has stalled in Congress, and even though the Biden administration has initiated the long process of establishing national heat standards for outdoor and indoor work, the rules are likely to take years to finalize.

If California adopts its proposal in the spring, businesses would be required to cool worksites below 87 degrees Fahrenheit when employees are present and below 82 degrees in places where workers wear protective clothing or are exposed to radiant heat, such as furnaces. If businesses are unable to lower the temperatures, they must provide workers with water, breaks, areas where they can cool down, cooling vests, or other means to keep employees from overheating.

It is only getting hotter every year, said Alice Berliner, director of the Worker Health & Safety Program at the University of California-Merced. Having protections for both indoor and outdoor workers, it empowers someone to feel like they can ask for access to drinking water, and access to a break when they feel like they’re hot.

Neither workers nor businesses are satisfied with the plan. Some businesses fear they wont be able to meet the requirements, even with the flexibility the regulation offers. Workers argue buildings should be kept even cooler.

Heat stress can lead to heat exhaustion, heatstroke, cardiac arrest, and kidney failure. In 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 1,600 heat-related deaths, which is likely an undercount because health care providers are not required to report them. Its not clear how many of these deaths are related to work, either indoors or outdoors.

In California, 20 workers died from heat between 2010 and 2017, seven of them because of indoor heat, according to the Rand Corp., which analyzed the states proposed indoor heat rules. Email Sign-Up

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After a record-breaking heat wave in the Pacific Northwest in 2021, Oregon in 2022 adopted protections for indoor workers that trigger when temperatures hit 80 degrees. Minnesotas threshold temperatures range from 77 degrees to 86 degrees, depending on the type of work. The sheer size of Californias workforce, estimated at about 18 million, could usher in changes for the rest of country, said Juanita Constible, senior climate and health advocate at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

As California goes, so goes the nation on so many things, she said.

California regulators have crafted the indoor rules to complement the states protections for outdoor workers. Those say that when temperatures exceed 80 degrees, employers must provide shade and observe workers for signs of heat illness. At or above 95 degrees, they must come up with ways to prevent heat illness, such as reducing work hours or providing additional breaks. Colorado, Oregon, and Washington also have rules for outdoor workers.

The California Occupational Safety and Standards Board, which is charged with setting worker protections, is weighing the regulation that would require employers to cool their buildings with air conditioning, fans, misters, and other methods when the temperature or the heat index hits 82 or 87. Some employees would be exempt from the rule, including employees who work remotely and those involved in emergency operations.

The board is expected to vote on the rules in March, and they would take effect by this summer, board Chief Counsel Autumn Gonzalez said.

Workers say buildings should be cooler than the proposed temperatures, especially in warehouses, food-processing plants, and other places where employees routinely move and lift.

These temperature thresholds are too high, said Robert Moreno, a UPS driver in San Diego who told the board in May that he has spent most of his life working in warehouses. At the proposed temperatures, its too hot to sit outside and eat lunch, let alone work inside a building thats been baking in the sun all day, he said.

Most of these warehouses are sheet metal, zero to no airflow.

At the Amazon facility in San Bernardino where Fee worked, company spokesperson Steve Kelly said the building is air-conditioned and outfitted with ceiling fans, and workers are encouraged to take cooldown breaks anytime they need to.

Weve seen the positive impacts of an effective heat-mitigation program and believe all employers should be held to the same standard, said Kelly, who declined to say whether the company supports the California proposal.

The temperature inside the 658,000-square-foot building hasnt risen above 78 degrees, Kelly said.

Regulators have acknowledged that some businesses wont be able to cool their workplaces, such as laundries or restaurant kitchens, where commercial boilers, ovens, and fryers operate, and have offered them the option of giving workers cooldown areas and other relief.

But those solutions arent always feasible, Katie Davey, former legislative director of the California Restaurant Association, told the board in May. For instance, there isnt room for a cooldown area in many small restaurants, she said. And lowering temperatures in a kitchen could put restaurants in violation of food safety laws that require food to be heated to specific temperatures, she added.

We are concerned that the proposed indoor-heat illness regulations may conflict with regulations which affect our ability to heat and hold food to the necessary temperatures to protect the public health from foodborne illness, Davey said.

California regulators have spent years drafting their proposal, and it appears unlikely they will lower the threshold temperatures of 82 degrees and 87 degrees. Doing so would increase the number of businesses that have to comply and the cost, triggering a new review that would delay the regulations release, said Eric Berg, deputy chief of health and research and standards at Californias Division of Occupational Safety and Health, which would enforce the regulation.

I think that the threshold should be lowered, in general, said board member Laura Stock, at the May meeting. But equally, if not, more importantly, is that we don’t hold the process up so that we can get a standard in place as quickly as possible.

The urgency comes, in part, because of federal inaction. Legislation has stalled in Congress to require OSHA to publish an emergency rule to enact temporary standards for all workers while the agency purues a permanent standard. The bill is unlikely to pass the Republican-controlled House, which hasnt favored regulations on business.

Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas), a co-sponsor of that bill, said the situation has become dire in his state. In June, Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed a law eliminating existing local ordinances in Austin, Dallas, and other cities that required employers to give outdoor construction workers water breaks.

As the climate worsens, and as summers get hotter, we should be doing more to protect workers, rather than taking their rights away, Casar told KFF Health News. Too often, worker protection rules have been allowed to die a slow death in a prolonged rulemaking process, and we can’t let that happen here.

This article was produced by KFF Health News, which publishes California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation.

Samantha Young: syoung@kff.org, @youngsamantha Related Topics California Public Health States Environmental Health Minnesota Oregon Texas Contact Us Submit a Story Tip

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Politics

£3 bus fare cap could be scrapped after December 2025, hints transport secretary

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November 17, 2024

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£3 bus fare cap could be scrapped after December 2025, hints transport secretary

The £3 bus fare cap could be scrapped after December 2025, the transport secretary has suggested.

Sir Keir Starmer recently confirmed that the £2 cap, which has been in place in England since 1 January 2023, will rise to £3 at the start of next year.

The government has said the £3 cap would stay in place for another year, until December 2025.

But speaking on Sunday morning with Trevor Phillips, Transport Secretary Louise Haugh indicated the government was considering abolishing the cap beyond that point to explore alternative methods of funding.

Politics latest: Government not worried about food shortages

She said: “We’ve stepped in with funding to protect it at £3 until 31 December next year. And in that period, we’ll look to establish more targeted approaches.

“We’ve, through evaluation of the £2 cap, found that the best approach is to target it at young people.

“So we want to look at ways in order to ensure more targeted ways, just like we do with the concessionary fare for older people, we think we can develop more targeted ways that will better encourage people onto buses.”

Pressed again on whether that meant the single £3 cap would be removed after December 2025, and that other bus reliefs could be put in place, she replied: “That’s what we’re considering at the moment as we go through this year, as we have that time whilst the £3 cap is in place – because the evaluation that we had showed, it hadn’t represented good value for money, the previous cap.”

It comes after Ms Haigh also confirmed that HS2 would not run to Crewe.

The northern leg of HS2, which would have linked Birmingham to Manchester, was scrapped by former prime minister Rishi Sunak during the Conservative Party conference last year.

There had been reports that Labour could instead build an “HS2-light” railway between Birmingham and Crewe.

But Ms Haigh said that while HS2 would be built from Birmingham to Euston, the government was “not resurrecting the plans for HS2”.

“HS2 Limited isn’t getting any further work beyond what’s been commissioned to Euston,” she added.

Last month the prime minster confirmed the £2 bus fare cap would rise to £3 – branded the “bus tax” by critics – saying that the previous government had not planned for the funding to continue past the end of 2024.

He said that although the cap would increase to £3, it would stay at that price until the end of 2025 “because I know how important it is”.

Manchester mayor to keep £2 cap

The cap rise has been unpopular with some in Labour, with Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham opting to keep the £2 cap in place for the whole of 2025, despite the maximum that can be charged across England rising to £3.

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The region’s mayor said he was able to cap single fares at £2 because of steps he took to regulate the system and bring buses back into public ownership from last year.

He also confirmed plans to introduce a contactless payment system, with a daily and weekly cap on prices, as Greater Manchester moves towards a London-style system for public transport pricing.

Under devolution, local authorities and metro mayors can fund their own schemes to keep fares down, as has been the case in Greater Manchester, London and West Yorkshire.

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Politics

Transport Secretary Louise Haigh downplays risk of empty shelves if farmers strike over inheritance tax

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November 17, 2024

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Transport Secretary Louise Haigh downplays risk of empty shelves if farmers strike over inheritance tax

Shelves will not be left empty this winter if farmers go on strike over tax changes, a cabinet minister has said.

Louise Haigh, the transport secretary, said the government would be setting out contingency plans to ensure food security is not compromised if farmers decide to protest.

Farmers across England and Wales have expressed anger that farms will no longer get 100% relief on inheritance tax, as laid out in Rachel Reeves’s budget last month.

Welsh campaign group Enough is Enough has called for a national strike among British farmers to stop producing food until the decision to impose inheritance tax on farms is reversed, while others also contemplate industrial action.

At the weekend the group held a protest in Llandudno, North Wales, where Sir Keir Starmer was giving his first speech as prime minister to the Welsh Labour conference.

Politics latest: £3 bus fare cap could be scrapped after December 2025

Asked by Trevor Phillips if she was concerned at the prospect that shelves could be empty of food this winter, Ms Haigh replied: “No, we think we put forward food security really as a priority, and we’ll work with farmers and the supply chain in order to ensure that.

“The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs will be setting out plans for the winter and setting out – as business as usual – contingency plans and ensuring that food security is treated as the priority it deserves to be.”

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From April 2026, farms worth more than £1m will face an inheritance tax rate of 20%, rather than the standard 40% applied to other land and property.

However, farmers – who previously did not have to pay any inheritance tax – argue the change will mean higher food prices, lower food production and having to sell off land to pay.

Louise Haigh appears on Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips
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Transport Secretary Louise Haigh

Tom Bradshaw, the president of the National Farmers Union, said he had “never seen the united sense of anger that there is in this industry today”.

“I don’t for one moment condone that anyone will stop supplying the supermarkets,” he said.

“We saw during the COVID crisis that those unable to get their food were often either the very most vulnerable, or those that have been working long hours in hospitals and nurses – that is something we do not want to see again.”

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Farmers ‘betrayed’ over tax change

Explaining why the tax changes were so unpopular, he said food production margins were “so low”, and “any liquid cash that’s been available has been reinvested in farm businesses” for the future.

“One of the immediate changes is that farms are going to have to start putting money into their pensions, which many haven’t previously done,” he said.

“They’re going to have to have life insurance policies in case of a sudden death. And unfortunately, that was cash that would previously have been invested in producing the country’s food for the future.”

Sir Keir has staunchly defended the measure, saying it will not affect small farms and is aimed at targeting wealthy landowners who buy up farmland to avoid paying inheritance tax.

However, the Conservatives have argued the changes amount to a “war on farmers” and have begun a campaign targeting the prime minister as a “farmer harmer”.

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‘Farmers’ livelihoods are threatened’

Speaking to Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips, shadow home secretary Chris Philp said he was happy with farmers protesting against the budget – as long as their methods and tactics were “lawful”.

“What the Labour government has done to farmers is absolutely shocking,” he said.

“These are farmers that, you know, they’re not well off particularly, they’re often actually struggling to make ends meet because farming is not very profitable these days. And of course, we rely on farmers for our food security.

Addressing the possible protests, Mr Philp said: “I think people have a right to protest, and obviously we respect the right to protest within the law, and it’s up to parliament to set where the law sits.

“So I think providing they’re behaving lawfully, legally, then they do have a right to protest.”

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Next week farmers are expected to hold a mass protest of about 20,000 people in Westminster against the inheritance tax changes.

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World

Russia fires more than 200 missiles and drones at Ukraine in largest attack since August

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November 17, 2024

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Russia fires more than 200 missiles and drones at Ukraine in largest attack since August

Several people have been killed after Russia launched its largest aerial attack on Ukraine since August.

More than 200 missiles and drones were deployed, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, as he condemned a “massive combined strike” on “all regions”.

Andrii Sybiha, Ukraine’s foreign minister, said “peaceful cities” and “sleeping civilians” were targeted.

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Moscow is focused on the “energy infrastructure throughout Ukraine” and is trying to intimidate Ukrainians with “cold and lack of light”, Mr Zelenskyy said.

The president added: “The whole world sees and knows that we are defending ourselves against absolute evil, which does not understand any language but force.

“We need unity [and] the world needs unity. Only together can we stop this evil.”

A firefighter at the site of a Russian drone strike in Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine. Pic: State Emergency Service of Ukraine/Reuters
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A firefighter at the site of a Russian drone strike in Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine. Pic: State Emergency Service of Ukraine/Reuters

Two people were killed and a 17-year-old boy was injured after a Russian attack in the Black Sea port of Odesa, regional governor Oleh Kiper said.

Energy infrastructure was damaged, he said, leading to “interruptions in the supply of heat, water and electricity”.

In Mykolaiv, southern Ukraine, officials said two people were killed in a Russian drone attack.

Ukraine’s state emergency service said a multi-storey building, cars and a shopping centre were hit.

Two women were killed and six injured, including two children, it added.

In the central Dnipro region, two people died and three were wounded in a strike on a rail depot, while in Lviv, on the border with Poland, a woman was killed in a car.

Emergency services remove part of a Russian missile from an apartment building in Kyiv. Pic: Reuters
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Emergency services remove part of a Russian missile from an apartment building in Kyiv. Pic: Reuters

In the capital, Kyiv, mayor Vitali Klitschko said Russian attacks had caused a fire to erupt on the roof of a residential building, injuring at least two people.

People took refuge in metro stations, while emergency services were pictured removing part of a Russian missile from an apartment block.

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The Ukrainian military said it had destroyed 102 missiles and 42 drones launched by Russia.

Hypersonic missiles were among the 120 fired at Ukrainian territory, it said.

Air defences were active in “almost all” regions of Ukraine.

Equipment at thermal power stations has been “seriously damaged” during Russian air strikes, Ukraine’s largest private energy provider said. DTEK said its staff were working on repairs.

People sheltering in a metro station in Kyiv. Pic: Reuters
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People sheltering in a metro station in Kyiv. Pic: Reuters

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Russia’s defence ministry confirmed it had attacked energy resources supporting Ukraine’s military-industrial complex, Russian news agencies reported.

Poland scrambled its air force early on Sunday because of the “massive attack by the Russian Federation using cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles”.

Mr Zelenskyy sent his condolences to anyone affected by the latest Russian attacks.

He said “all necessary forces” were involved in restoring power and facilities.

On Tuesday, it will be 1,000 days since Russia launched what it calls its “special military operation”.

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