Every week at All Saints Church we put our faith into action. This week we urge Congress to protect outdoor workers with mandatory safety measures—such as access to water, rest, and shade—that could prevent worker deaths in killer heat conditions, by passing the Asunción Valdivia Heat Illness, Injury, and Fatality Prevention Act.
Asunción Valdivia was only 53 years old when he died of heat stroke after working a 10-hour shift picking grapes in California on a July day where the temperature reached 105°F.
Heat-related illness and death is preventable, yet workers do not have basic protections against potentially lethal extreme heat. And without action to cut heat-trapping emissions, the number of days with extreme heat will continue to increase. A heat index, or “feels like” temperature, above 90°F is considered the threshold at which outdoor workers are increasingly susceptible to heat-related illness. Our analysis found that, without drastic action on climate change, the number of days with a heat index above 90°F would more than double by the century’s end.
Extreme heat days threaten not only outdoor workers’ health, but also their income. Our Too Hot to Work report projects that between now and 2065, climate change will quadruple US outdoor workers’ exposure to hazardous heat conditions, jeopardizing their health and placing up to $55.4 billion of their earnings at risk annually if no action is taken to reduce global warming emissions. With no action to reduce emissions, the average outdoor worker risks losing more than $1,700 in annual earnings due to lost work days from extreme heat, though workers in the 10 hardest-hit counties risk losing nearly $7,000 per year on average.
We must make deep cuts in global heat-trapping emissions to help limit the intensity of extreme heat in the coming decades. But we also need to protect workers with mandatory safety measures—such as access to water, rest, and shade—that could prevent worker deaths in killer heat conditions.
—- Union of Concerned Scientists
Options to Take Action:
- Sign a letter at the Action Table on Sunday.
- Download, sign and mail an action letter here:
Action Letter for CA Action Letter for Outside CA - Click here and go to the Union of Concerned Scientists action.
++++++++++
If you ever need to look up your member of the U.S. House of Representatives or your U.S. Senators check here: www.house.gov and www.senate.gov.
To find contact information for your California State Senator or California State Assemblymember check here: www.senate.ca.gov and www.assembly.ca.gov.
Take Action
Every week at All Saints Church we put our faith into action. This week we urge Congress to protect outdoor workers with mandatory safety measures—such as access to water, rest, and shade—that could prevent worker deaths in killer heat conditions, by passing the Asunción Valdivia Heat Illness, Injury, and Fatality Prevention Act.