The GMB and Unite unions want the government to allow manual workers to down tools when it gets too hot, with no repercussions from the boss. Given that Angela Rayner, Wes Streeting, Lisa Nandy and David Lammy, four highly influential ministers, have all previously supported such a measure in opposition, there\u2019s a good chance this idea will become law. Seems reasonable, right? Nobody should have to toil away in a furnace, greenhouse or sauna.<\/p>\n
Apart from steelworkers and market gardeners, obviously, who work in actual as opposed to metaphorical furnaces and greenhouses. Not forgetting those folk whose job is to ladle out water in actual saunas.<\/p>\n
What is the top temperature the unions have in mind, do you reckon? I was thinking maybe 35C, 95 fahrenheit in old money? That\u2019s about when severe heat can start to become hazardous, even for fit young healthy people. If you\u2019re on the bins or the buses, or on a site or doing security in the sun, at a minimum you need regular breaks in the shade when the mercury gets that high. Same goes for farmers, market traders and prostitutes, although the last named tend to work nights.<\/p>\n
But the unions don\u2019t want 35C as their preferred legal maximum. They\u2019re not even suggesting 32. Or 30. They want manual workers to have the statutory right to sack it off when the thermometer edges up to 27C<\/a>, or 80F. Last year, that temperature was reached in London 19 times. In July this year, it hit 27C (or higher) in the capital on 12 days. The Midlands and north were a bit cooler, but not much. As for Scotland? Well, the 27 Club is one the Scots are yet to join. But they will, soon enough.<\/p>\n So anyway, back down south, what I am contractually obliged to call \u201cLabour\u2019s union paymasters\u201d would essentially have shut down London for almost 40 per cent of last month. No public transport between about 9am and 8pm. No rubbish collection from breakfast through to bedtime. Same for construction work, unless some of the big firms stump up to install giant fans, possibly hanging from cranes over new builds, although Ed Miliband would have something to say about the extra energy use. Huge, dangling, rapidly revolving propellers create health and safety issues in their own right too.<\/p>\n No one to clean or safeguard all the parks. No coppers out and about, of course, but then, fair play, nothing new about that. Private security guards taking it easy indoors while suntanned hooligans run amok. No dog walkers to exercise other people\u2019s pets, which would all become obese and unhappy. White-collar types having to bike or walk to their air-conditioned offices, if they have one, but then finding no deliveries arriving, the lavatories in a disgusting state and nowhere to buy lunch. No outdoor markets. Lots of small non-AC mom-and-pop shops shuttered up. No sporting events.<\/p>\n And think of the tension, the unpredictability! The total chaos each morning rush hour as someone, presumably a GMB shop steward in a brown Seventies warehouse coat, stands in Piccadilly Circus with the official thermometer, BBC cameras turning, solemnly takes his reading\u2026 and tells everyone to piss off home.<\/p>\n Worse than lockdown, basically. Only every summer, more and more often, for ever.<\/p>\n I suppose we\u2019d find workarounds in due course, chiefly by altering the usual routines and switching shifts to the early morning and evenings. This, after all, is when the Greeks and Spanish pretend to work already, with a load of scoffing, snoozing and shagging sandwiched between their two supposed bursts of frenzied productivity in the cooler hours.<\/p>\n Then again, it\u2019s bad enough when the plumber insists on turning up at 7.30am, knowing he\u2019s got you over a barrel because nine out of ten youngsters who should have trained as plumbers are unemployed and gazing at the media studies certificate on their bedroom walls instead. But see how you like it when the last poo-pipe jockey in England says he wants to come over at 4.30am. On May 19, 2027.<\/p>\n Autumn-body ready<\/p>\n