Maintenance worker Ever Gomez, 34, is dropped off near his home in Homestead, Florida. He says he often feels sick from a heat index of over 100 degrees. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration proposed a rule Tuesday outlining steps employers must take to protect indoor and outdoor workers from the risk of heat illness, the first major regulation aimed at preventing heat-related deaths on the job.
The proposal comes as summertime heat envelopes the United States and the hottest month of the year gets underway. At the beginning of this week, over 60 million Juley Fulcher, a worker health advocate for the nonprofit Public Citizen, which has pushed for a national heat standard, said the proposal is based on scientific research on how the body responds to heat and borrows from state workplace heat safety laws. So far, only five states have such protections: California, Colorado, Minnesota, Oregon and Washington. Workers in Maryland could soon gain protections — there is a draft rule that is not yet final.