Heat pressures U.S. as feds weigh worker protection rule

Dozens of farm and agricultural workers have died from heat stroke since 2015, according to federal data. 

This week, swaths of the U.S. are dealing with high temperatures and warnings of heat stroke, a potentially deadly condition. The heat wave comes just as federal regulators have convened public hearings on a Biden-era proposal aimed at preventing deaths related to heat illness among U.S. workers.

Farmworkers are among those most at-risk, according to a study by the National Institute of Health. They often wear pants and long sleeves to protect themselves from pesticides while laboring, and some employers push workers to their limits.

“I’ve had bosses who, if they see you resting for a few minutes under a tree to recover yourself, think you’re wasting your time and send you home without pay,” one worker told Investigate Midwest in 2023 about working in 100-plus degree heat.

A 2015 study found agricultural workers died of heat stress at a rate of about three deaths per 1 million workers — a rate much higher than the construction industry.

Since 2015, 28 farmworkers have died from heat stroke, according to Occupational Health and Safety Administration data. That’s roughly one-fifth of the heat-related deaths OSHA recorded during that time span.

In July 2024, the Biden administration proposed new standards related to heat, including requiring employers to provide training, water and more breaks as the temperature increased. Public comment on the ruling ended in January. The public hearings are the next step in the process.
Republican lawmakers and the business community have decried the proposal. In a public comment, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a powerful pro-business lobbying group, said Biden’s proposal “would result in OSHA micromanaging” the workplace.

The future of the proposal is unclear. Some industries, such as construction, might want President Trump to approve a version of the rule in case a Democrat wins election in 2028, according to Bloomberg Law.

“There are political considerations, so it’s conceivable that what they will do is promulgate a rule, but the rule will be watered down,” Michael Duff, a professor of law at St. Louis University School of Law, told Bloomberg.

The government experts behind the rule worked for the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, an agency within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The institute studied factors that affected workplace safety.

The “entire team” of heat experts was fired this month, though, as part of the Trump administration’s purges of federal employees, according to E&E News. “If it stays the way it is right now, no one is going to be doing heat,” an institute worker told E&E News — possibly hamstringing the heat protection proposal.

The proposal is badly needed to protect the men and women who harvest Americans’ food, farmworker advocates have argued. As part of its public comment, Farmworker Association of Florida submitted the testimony of a 44-year-old woman working in the state’s nurseries.

She said her employer does not train workers on how to deal with heat stress, and younger coworkers have fainted because they do not know how to protect themselves. “You can put water on your head and face to cool yourself down,” she said, but, some days, the provided water runs out.

Investigate Midwest is an independent, nonprofit newsroom. Our mission is to serve the public interest by exposing dangerous and costly practices of influential agricultural corporations and institutions through in-depth and data-driven investigative journalism. Visit us online at www.investigatemidwest.org.