On April 15, Annie Fierro of the Workers Defense Action Fund arrived at a state House committee hearing in Austin to support a bill that sought to prevent workplace heat-related illnesses and deaths.
Fierro chose to share written testimony from Ignacio, a Houston member of Workers Defense who she said was unable to get time off to attend the hearing. For over 25 years, she explained, Ignacio had worked as a finisher for construction projects. Laboring inside un-airconditioned buildings filled with chemical vapors and little ventilation in Texas’ scorching summers is a regular part of his job. Then, in March 2024, he was hospitalized with kidney failure that he attributes to working without sufficient breaks or water through Texas’ sweltering heat. He now receives dialysis 12 hours a week.
After his employer learned about his condition, his pay was docked, and he’s still not given time for water breaks.
“I am just one of the thousands of Texas workers that suffer poor and unsafe conditions on the job,” Fierro read.
But, in the end, the proposed legislation died—part of yet another unsuccessful effort to bolster protections for workers in increasing heat.
Republican lawmakers in Texas have long rejected legislation meant to prevent work-related heat illnesses and deaths. During the record-breaking summer heat wave of 2023, Governor Greg Abbott also signed into law the so-called “Death Star” bill, banning many local ordinances including those passed in Austin and Dallas that mandated rest breaks for construction workers. (The law was ruled unconstitutional by a lower state court and remains tied up in appeals.) That year, the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that 14 Texans died from workplace heat exposure, though BLS statistics undercount heat deaths in particular.
Worker advocates had hoped relief would come from the Biden administration. Since October 2021, federal officials have been developing a new Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) rule that would specifically require employers to protect workers from heat exposure. The proposed heat rule would require employers to have a heat acclimatization plan and provide workers a rest break every two hours if the heat index exceeds 90 degrees. It was published last August, and the public comment period closed in January. A virtual hearing, open to anyone, is set for June 16.
That hearing is considered a milestone for workplace health and safety, given that the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)—a federal agency that researches and recommends worker health and safety protections—first recommended a heat rule more than fifty years ago. But it is unclear how the Trump administration will now proceed.
Without a federal heat safety rule, workers who complain to OSHA about being forced to work with insufficient water and breaks in increasingly high temperatures must rely on a catch-all section of statute called the “general duty clause,” which broadly requires employers to maintain workplaces without “recognized hazards.” But fines and sanctions based on the general duty clause are more vulnerable to administrative and legal challenges from employers—even after government inspectors document problems in investigations of heat-related deaths. Having a specific standard for preventing heat illnesses and deaths would give employers clearer guidance and strengthen OSHA’s enforcement ability, experts say.
From 2011 to 2022, the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that 479 workers in the United States died from heat exposure while nearly 34,000 suffered heat-related illnesses or injuries on the job. OSHA has stated that these numbers are “likely vast underestimates.” The nonprofit Public Citizen has estimated that up to 2,000 deaths and 170,000 injuries occur annually from workplace heat exposure. Texas leads the nation in workplace fatalities and illnesses, including those from heat exposure, according to the BLS data.
“For far too long, Texas workers have been forced to work through extreme heat—at times even losing their lives,” said U.S. Representative Greg Casar, who has been pushing for workplace protections from the heat for more than a decade. “The basic rights of all workers—and lives—are at stake.”
But, even after the June hearing, there will be a long way to go for OSHA to finalize the new rule. According to a congressional report, it typically takes OSHA 4 to 12 years to issue a new standard.
Barab predicted that one of two things may happen under the Trump administration. “Even if they want to, they may not have the resources or the staff to finish up a standard in the next three years,” he said, or: “They could try to issue a very weak standard that would basically look like they were doing something that really wouldn’t have any teeth in it.”
The administration could also move to kill the standard altogether, though Barab said that to do so, “There are a number of lengthy steps they need to go through (assuming they will actually comply with the law.) So they may prefer to let it wither.”
Already, the Trump administration has cut federal employees who oversee standards for workers’ health and safety. In April, more than 85 percent of the NIOSH workforce was fired. On May 12, some were reinstated, though the agency remains gutted.
The administration is also terminating leases for 11 OSHA offices, including the one in Houston, home to many of the nation’s largest oil and gas companies. While OSHA officials continue to conduct inspections, Barab told the Observer that Trump has cut 10 percent of its workforce and more layoffs could be coming. “We’re not quite sure what’s in the cards in terms of … downsizing and reorganization of OSHA.”
As part of a wider push to wipe out workplace, environmental, financial, and other regulations years in the making, Trump also issued an executive order in mid-April entitled “Unleashing Prosperity Through Deregulation,” which requires 10 regulations to be repealed for every new one added. That means an OSHA heat rule could require the undoing of other workplace protections.
In February, Trump tapped David Keeling, a former executive for Amazon and UPS, to lead OSHA. On April 30, The Lever reported that during the time Keeling served as vice president of global health and safety at UPS, from 2018 to 2021, and as the director of road and transportation safety at Amazon, from 2021 to 2023, OSHA fined those businesses $2 million for more than 300 workplace safety citations.
Keeling has not yet been confirmed by the U.S. Senate and did not reply to an interview request for this story. A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Labor told the Observer, “Given that Mr. Keeling is going through the nomination process, we are unable to comment on his potential leadership at OSHA.”
No Republican administration has issued a major OSHA standard since the George H. W. Bush administration, except when ordered to do so by the courts, Barab told the Observer.
Some Texas businesses already are lobbying against OSHA’s proposed heat rule and have filed comments arguing that OSHA-mandated rest breaks are unnecessary even in extreme heat. The Associated Builders and Contractors criticized the proposed rule’s “one size fits all” approach and stated, “Heat triggers should be determined by the contractor and those deemed competent persons in the field.” Jay Bragg, an associate director with the Texas Farm Bureau wrote that already “Farm workers are generally encouraged to take breaks as needed.”
A letter from the Texas International Produce Association stated, “Workers in Texas are acclimated to these conditions and have developed the capacity and skill-sets to work effectively under these temperatures.”
But David Chincanchan, the policy director for Texas’s Workers Defense Action Fund, argues that those kinds of comments do not reflect workers’ experiences. “There will always be employers who refuse to do the right thing unless they are required,” Chincanchan said.
The Observer previously reported how Antelmo Ramirez, a 57-year-old father, grandfather, and husband, died in 2021 from hyperthermia while working at the Tesla Gigafactory construction site near Austin. In another story, the Observer revealed how the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) falsified heat illness prevention training records, including that of Eugene Gates, a Dallas postal worker, who died in 2023 while lugging mail in 98-degree weather.
In an interview, Homer Hernandez, a San Antonio postal worker and a legislative chair of the National Association of Letter Carriers, told the Observer that most Texas mail carriers are still driving un-airconditioned trucks, though USPS promised last October to provide more vehicles with air conditioning.
In the meantime, Texas workers like Ignacio, whose story was shared with legislators in April, face increasing risks as temperatures continue to climb. A record-breaking heat wave swept Texas in May with temperatures exceeding 100 degrees in many cities.
The Climate Prediction Center forecasts above average temperatures statewide this summer. John Nielsen-Gammon, director of the Southern Regional Climate Center and Texas State Climatologist, advised that workers exposed to the heat must take frequent breaks and drink plenty of water to prevent illnesses. “Each person should be monitoring their own symptoms,” Gammon said. This includes dizziness, headaches, nausea, and cramps, which when left untreated, can lead to a breakdown of organs, then death.
But until there are more protections in place, many workers, like Ignacio, say they must continue to endanger their health to make ends meet.
“When my employer learned about my situation, he started to treat me differently because of my health problems. He paid me less. … He didn’t allow me to take even short breaks to drink water and cool down my body,” read Fierro. “Workers like me who do their work honorably deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.”
The post Will Texas Workers Ever Get a Break from the Summer Heat? appeared first on The Texas Observer.
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