April marked the 11th consecutive month with record global heat.
And warning signs that it will be another scorcher of a summer in the Northeast have been plentiful too.
New Jersey workers, especially those used to laboring outside, know this already and some are fighting for more protections.
Lawmakers have advanced a state Assembly bill to provide more protections for workers dealing with sweltering temps while on the clock. A companion state Senate bill, both now out of committee, was similarly advanced earlier in May.
The measure would need to be passed by both legislative bodies before Gov. Phil Murphy could choose to sign it into law.
Nonetheless, recent steps have sped along the set of heat standards — marking a vote of confidence for organizations like Make the Road New Jersey, which fights for immigrant, Latinx and working class communities.
New Jersey had at least 181 heat stroke deaths between 2000 and 2020, according to state Department of Health statistics. The worst years came in 2002 and 2011, when 21 people died each summer.
Nationwide, Black and Brown workers have represented a disproportionate amount of heat-related deaths.
“We can’t let more workers die. This is preventable. It’s predictable. There is no real doubt in New Jersey that climate change is real and that it’s advancing and if we’re going to be serious about preparing for the impacts of that we need to protect workers now,” Garrett O’Connor, director of worker organizing and policy at Make the Road New Jersey, told NJ Advance Media on Friday.
Some business groups contend the regulations are vague and could be costly, while several employee advocacy organizers countered this week that they are very much needed.
Workers in the Garden State can contact state agencies like the Department of Labor or the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, OSHA, when dealing with extreme heat on the job. But organizations say employees can lack basic resources as rudimentary as a fan or can feel pressure to speak out for fear of losing their job.
O’Connor said the new bill would address extreme heat issues specifically, which a different landmark law for temp workers does not.
“When I was a kid, 80 degrees was a very hot beach day. Today, we go through periods of 100 degrees with a relative acceptance that it’s going to be part of our lives,” state Sen. Joseph Cryan (D-Union), primary sponsor of the senate bill, said on the phone Friday. “We need to understand what that reflects in the workplace.”
Opponents of the bill say OSHA is developing more sweeping heat standards now and already has general protections for workers. That standard has been about 3 years in the making. Critics also disagree that employers would maintain uncomfortable conditions given vast nationwide worker shortages.
Advocates like O’Connor said not all employers flout worker rights but having heat standards in place would provide added protections.
The matter gets more complicated when considering undocumented workers and additional fears they may feel about being vocal over extreme heat issues on the job. Make the Road NJ members said that’s why the new bill includes language to protect against retaliation and provides the ability to take employers to court.
The new standard, if passed, would require measures like:
- Employers must establish and implement a heat-related illness and injury prevention plan
- That plan should be shaped with input from employees and their representatives, designed based on the place of employment and be understood by a majority of employees (namely if their primary language is not English)
- The plan for dealing with extreme heat must include providing employees cold water, paid rest breaks, access to shade, and — when heat waves are occurring — postponement of tasks that are not urgent
- Employees must be able to easily communicate with employers directly about heat-related illnesses
Heat safety protections are ‘inadequate’
A draft of the bill notes that, per federal data, heat stress seriously injured more than 70,000 workers from 1992 through 2017.
In New Jersey, heat-related emergency room visits have gone up 150% in 10 years, according to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.
“In the absence of corresponding state legislation or jurisdictional authority ... New Jersey worker safety protections against extreme heat are inadequate to protect the most vulnerable and highly exposed workers,” reads an excerpt from the state’s extreme heat action plan draft released in April.
While California, Oregon and Washington have outdoor heat exposure safety and health standards — and Minnesota has a standard for indoor heat issues — New Jersey does not.
Besides providing training for employees to recognize extreme heat issues, the bill would also mean companies must maintain data on heat-related illnesses, injuries and deaths at the place of employment.
“LSNJ supports the heat standard bill since it will provide long-overdue protections for low wage and other workers in the state, and the thousands of farmworkers who face hotter working conditions with each year,” said Keith Talbot, an attorney from Legal Services of New Jersey.
Elissa Frank, vice president of government affairs for the New Jersey Business and Industry Association, said it was impossible for businesses to develop the kind of extreme heat prevention plans the bill outlines within 30 days of the legislation passing.
Frank saidin written testimony that the legislation was “extremely vague.”
“For example,” she wrote, “this legislation requires that employers ‘limit [the] length of time an employee may be exposed to heat,’ but provides no length of time for compliance. Additionally, this legislation requires that an employer provide ‘. . . regular monitoring for employee exposure to heat . . .’ but does not define what constitutes ‘regular monitoring.’”
Another worry for business groups: costs employers could incur to adhere to the new standards.
A spokesman for the NJBIA said the group was working with others from the New Jersey Business Coalition to compile a list of amendment requests to the bill. Those will likely include giving businesses more than 30 days to comply with the standard provisions and removing the “private right to a cause of action” section that opens an additional legal avenue for employees.
After the bill moved out of the Assembly Labor Committee on Thursday, Frank said in an email that her group was” looking forward to working with sponsors to make the bill better for business.”
NJ Advance Media staff writer Katie Kausch contributed to this report.
