CWAers Testify at OSHA Heat Hearing

A CWA panel of staff and members testified at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) public hearing on Heat Injury and Illness Prevention in Outdoor and Indoor Work Settings.CWA strongly supports the passage of an enforceable, comprehensive federal heat standard to protect all workers from preventable heat injuries, illnesses, and deaths.

The panel, led by CWA’s Deputy Director for Occupational Safety and Health Micki Siegel de Hernandez, included IUE-CWA Staff Representative Danny Sallie II, CWA Local 6222 Steward and Safety Chair Randy Rodriguez, and CWA Local 7019 Steward Ted Maple.

Siegel de Hernandez emphasized that heat protections are a life-saving necessity enabling workers to do their jobs safely. She asked OSHA to strengthen the worker and authorized representative involvement provisions, to address acclimatization protections for workers during sudden heat waves, to provide heat protections for non-traditional responders during emergency response activities in high heat, to address protections for transient and mobile worksites, and to include sedentary indoor workers in the final standard.

Sallie provided many examples of heat stress in manufacturing and of feasible, proactive protections.

Rodriguez spoke about heat exposure in telecommunications and how training can save lives.

Maple spoke about dangerous, high heat conditions faced by his represented members in San Antonio, who are airline cabin appearance agents who do security checks and cleaning inside stifling planes with no ventilation or cooling.

You can read the full testimony of CWA’s Panel here.

You can see OSHA’s Heat Injury and Illness Prevention in Outdoor and Indoor Work Settings proposed rule here. You can see all of the public comments posted to the Heat Rulemaking Docket here.

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This post originally appeared on cwa-union.org.