Summer ending with no action on bill to protect outdoor workers from heat

The New Jersey Legislature failed to pass a workplace heat standard before the summer began despite bipartisan support. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

by Make the Road New Jersey member Elder Portillo

As we celebrate Labor Day today, with a barbeque on the patio or a final pool party, think of the workers like me who labored under extreme heat this summer.

For more than five years, I’ve worked as a mason, laying custom walkways, patios, driveways, and pools in backyards across New Jersey. My work allows our clients to enjoy their backyards or pools and cool off and relax during the summer. Almost every day, I work ten-plus hour shifts, even during extreme weather conditions. This is how I have been supporting my family for years.

However, what usually is a rewarding job has become a nightmare during this summer’s record-breaking heatwaves.

Working under extreme heat conditions is not only uncomfortable, it can be deadly. Between the intense sun and the concrete magnifying heat back at me during a 10-plus hour shift, my skin broke and burned. I have burn scars over my forearms, my shoulders, and my back.

On the hottest days this summer, I felt dizzy and vomited from the heat. The effects of the intense heat stayed with me even after my shift. On my drive home, I often had a headache and couldn’t focus. Even when I got home, I didn’t have an appetite to eat the food my wife made for me, I was so nauseous.

There were plenty of warning signs, but my employer was under no obligation to provide any type of protection.

Workers’ lives are at risk. Last year, 2,300 heat-related fatalities were recorded in the United States, more than three times the annual average from 2004 to 2018. In New Jersey and surrounding areas, heat-related hospitalizations rose dramatically, with nearly one thousand people seeking emergency room care between May and early August this year.

That’s why I’m fighting for a workplace heat standard — I want to make it home to my family every day.

Extreme heat could cost N.J.’s outdoor workers $2.2B in lost earnings, researchers warn

The New Jersey Legislature failed to pass a workplace heat standard before the summer began despite bipartisan support. The heat standard would provide basic protections to workers working in extreme heat. Workers like me can stay safe working in the heat, but we need adequate protections: access to water, shade or cooling stations, water breaks, and education on how to identify the symptoms of heat illness and heat stroke. Without all this, our health and safety is in jeopardy, even though heat-related illnesses are entirely preventable

This Labor Day, legislators will participate in parades and issue statements in support of workers’ rights. But the hundreds of thousands of workers like me won’t be celebrating because we’re still waiting for them to pass the workplace heat standards that will keep us safe once the next summer season begins.