“Heat is a serious safety issue,” she said. Kimetra Lewis, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers branch that represented Gates, said she’s aware of numerous other letter carriers who have had been overcome by the heat on the job during the recent heat wave. “He’d say, ‘Baby I’m used to it, I know what to do,’” she said. And she said her husband was never one to complain about the heat he regularly faced on his route. He had no health problems whatsover,” she told CNN. She said she has asked the US Postal Service for answers around her husband’s working conditions and death that day. There is still no official autopsy report, and his death has not been officially classified as heat-related, said his widow, Carla Gates. But the heat index, which can be a better gauge of how hot it feels, reached about 115 that day, according to National Weather Service data tracked by Wunderground, a weather website. The National Weather Service recorded a high temperature of 97 degrees at the Dallas Love Field airport that day. “You have workers listed as dying from natural causes, such as heart attacks, or going home suffering from the heat, getting sick and dying there, and it might not be counted as work related.”ģ9-day heat wave could last into August after smashing 2,300-plus recordsĮugene Gates, Jr., a 66-year old letter carrier in the Lakewood Post Office in Dallas, collapsed in a front yard on his route and died on June 20. That won’t go down as a heat-related illness if you get run over by a vehicle or crash it, but it was caused by the heat,” said Jordan Barab, who served as deputy assistant secretary of OSHA from 2009 to 2017. People suffering may make more mistakes due to the high heat. “Heat illness interferes with cognitive ability. Since most of those occurred in the summer that’s well over a death a week on the job for workers exposed to heat during the hottest months.Īnd experts say those numbers grossly underestimate the number of actual deaths from heat exposure on the job. The Bureau of Labor Statistics lists 436 workplace deaths between 20 due to exposure to high heat in the work place, or roughly 40 a year. What is clear is that workers are dying on the job due to exposure to high heat. “As the global temperature rises, workers are even more at risk for occupational heat exposures.” “The need for enforceable standards to ensure employers are implementing the proper controls to protect workers in high-heat conditions is greater than ever,” said a 2022 letter on the topic from the AFL-CIO. That effort, announced by the Biden administration nearly two years ago, is likely years from taking effect, if it does go into effect at all.īusiness interests, including the US Chamber of Commerce, are objecting to the rule making proposal, saying the question of what heat conditions are safe for workers is a complex question not easily addressed by a set of standards and rules and that differences in exertion and physical condition of workers plays a role in the risk from heat.īut labor groups say that formal standards on excessive heat are long overdue. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, is only now in the process of drafting a heat standard for work places, even as climate change means such extreme weather will likely grow more common. But the federal agency charged with protecting you on the job can do little or nothing if your boss orders you to work outside in the searing summer sun. A record heat wave stretching from California to Florida has caused dozens of deaths, filled some hospitals to pandemic levels and prompted government warnings about avoiding extended exposure to heat.
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