executive order<\/a> directing city agencies to create guidelines for worker safety in extreme heat.<\/p>\n\u201cThe workers building our skyline, delivering our packages, selling food on our street corners and keeping this city running deserve to come home safe at the end of every shift,\u201d Mamdani said at the time. \u201cIn the past, workers have borne the burden of extreme heat while government looked the other way. We\u2019re changing that because every worker\u2019s life is worth protecting.\u201d<\/p>\n
Participants in the roundtable came ready with ideas. They want to see more training, in multiple languages, for how workers can protect themselves, and more cooling and ventilation systems for indoor workers and on-site cooling stations for those laboring outside. Other suggestions included hazard pay for extreme heat and employer assistance for heat-related medical incidents at the work site.<\/p>\n
The panel also pushed for policy reform of worker\u2019s compensation to include on-the-job heated-related illness. The city is currently reviewing whether such illnesses should be designated as a reportable health condition as part of a workers\u2019 compensation claim.<\/p>\n
While workers do have an avenue to file complaints and voice concerns about their employers through the city’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection and the Commission on Human Rights, there are no concrete guidelines or mandates when it comes to protecting workers from extreme heat.<\/p>\n
According to Su, who served as labor secretary during the Biden administration, only the federal government can create mandates for private employers. Any rules the city creates would be non-mandatory for private companies, but they could benefit municipal workers.<\/p>\n
\u201dIf you make clear what the standard should be, if you make it specific enough so they can’t wriggle out of it to screw workers, then there are employers who will begin to come into compliance with that,\u201d Su said.<\/p>\n
As labor secretary, Su began work on what would have been the first-ever set of standards to protect workers from the hazards related to heat, but nothing has come of it since she left that role, she said.<\/p>\n
Workers brought tales of what it\u2019s like to do a job in brutal temperatures.<\/p>\n
Amazon workers described warehouses where the air conditioners didn\u2019t work, and returning to red-hot drivers\u2019 seats while out on a delivery run. Amazon told Gothamist it has installed reflective white films on the roofs of 9,000 of its vehicles this year to reduce interior temperatures, and invested $29 million in hydration stations across the country for its workers.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Neil Hyatt, a ramp worker at JFK Airport, talked about lifting heavy cargo on the airport tarmac when water or shade may not be readily available.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring the heat waves this summer, there was times that I felt dizzy,\u201d Hyatt said. \u201cI worry about passing out and falling,\u201d said Hyatt, who is a member of the 32BJ, a branch of the Service Employees International Union.<\/p>\n
And Nesbit, who worked in the kitchen of a Bushwick public school for about 17 years, said hours spent in hot kitchens can feel like torture.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe saying goes, ‘If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen,’\u201d Nesbit said. \u201cThese workers that are feeding children cannot leave the kitchen. It isn’t an option.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Workers who spend their days toiling in the sun or in sweltering warehouses and kitchens say they need…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":355064,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9,11,10],"class_list":["post-355063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/355064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}