"Miami-Dade County commissioners on Tuesday will decide whether to establish the first county-level workplace heat protections in the United States, a test of whether local governments can protect workers from increasingly dangerous temperatures in the absence of federal rules.

As climate change ratchets up global temperatures, most of the roughly 32 million people who work outdoors in the United States are not protected by any workplace heat safety regulations.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has published voluntary guidelines on heat safety, but these are not enforceable. Only three states — California, Washington and Oregon — require companies to give outdoor workers breaks to cool down on hot days. No states in the South, where workplace heat deaths are most common, have created their own heat safety rules."

Nicolás Rivero reports for the Washington Post November 6, 2023. [2]