Heat Is Killing Workers.
Public Citizen Demands Congress Act
Susan Harley / Public Citizen News

(August 2025) — For many Americans, the summer months bring to mind picnics, backyard barbeques, and other fun times with family and friends. Yet for the many workers who labor outside under the sun or inside in broiling temperatures, summer heat can be deadly. Sweltering temperatures also pose a lethal danger to behind-the-scenes laborers like warehouse workers and truck drivers who fulfill orders for consumer goods that many of us will be taking on our summer camping trips and beach getaways.

Public Citizen has long fought for enforceable safeguards to protect all workers from exposure to high levels of heat, twice petitioning the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for a national heat standard. Those petitions have pointed out that excess heat exposure can cause illnesses ranging from heat rash, heat exhaustion, heat stroke, cardiac arrest, and even death.

Symptoms of heat illness such as fatigue, sweating, loss of balance and motor coordination, and fainting also greatly increase the likelihood of workplace accidents, such as falling off ladders or roofs, or making mistakes while using power tools, operating vehicles, or working with dangerous chemicals.

It is estimated that 600 to 2,000 workers across the United States die every year due to excessive heat; as many as 170,000 workers across the country experience some form of heat illness or injury that can cause bodily damage and leave a permanent impact on their lives and their families’ livelihoods.

The danger from heat exposure is only intensifying as climate change impacts continue to worsen. Heat is already the leading weather-related killer, exceeding the lives lost to hurricanes, floods, and tornadoes. 2024 was a record year for high temperatures across the country. And this year has already seen some startling heat events, like temperature records being shattered across the East Coast during a June heat wave.

Relatively simple and affordable measures have proven extremely effective at protecting workers, like ensuring continuous access to water, ample breaks in a cool space, and making sure new employees are acclimatized before working in high temperatures.

Federal worker protections are slowly making their way through the rulemaking process; in August 2024, in response to Public Citizen’s petition, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) finally issued a proposed rule to protect outdoor and indoor workers from heat injury and illness. The long-awaited proposal was a thoughtful and comprehensive rule that followed the science and the lived experience of workers.

As with all rule proposals, there are areas where worker safeguards could have been strengthened but, on the whole, OSHA set forth a meaningful, enforceable, protective proposed rule that would educate employers and provide clarity on how to keep their workers safe, and give employees the much-needed protection from the effects of extreme heat that they require.

While OSHA is continuing its progress on the rulemaking, with hearings happening this summer, it seems unlikely this standard will fare well under the Trump administration, given its typical deregulatory bent. Public Citizen will continue to advocate for the rule as it moves forward to prevent the proposal from being defanged and to ensure that it continues to move forward in a timely manner.

Even in the best of times, it was expected that finalizing the federal heat standard would still take several years. And, with only a handful of state heat standards in place, the vast majority of employees lack simple heat protections like guaranteed shade, water, and rest.

As an interim step, leaders in Congress will again champion the Asunción Valdivia Heat Illness, Injury and Fatality Prevention Act. Named after a worker who tragically lost his life due to laboring in the heat without protections, this bill would direct OSHA to implement an enforceable interim heat standard that would be in effect until a final federal OSHA standard is issued.

Public Citizen is again working with offices on the Hill and our diverse set of stakeholder partners in the Heat Stress Network to ensure as many offices as possible join this important interim measure as we await a strong and effective final heat rule from OSHA.

“The failure to protect workers – including especially vulnerable immigrant farm workers – is a long standing and absolute disgrace” said Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen. “The core elements of a heat standard are water, shade and rest. There’s nothing complicated about it. And there’s no excuse for further delay as temperatures continue to soar due to the worsening climate crisis.”

As summer temperatures continue to rise, Public Citizen will remain focused on keeping the heat on our nation’s leaders to finally ensure that every single worker has enforceable protections to keep them safe from dangerous heat in the workplace.

This article appeared in the July/August 2025 edition of Public Citizen News. Download the full edition here