Florida Limits Local Governments’ Ability to Set Heat Exposure Requirements

The consequences of working outdoors in extreme temperatures can be fatal.

Consider the case of former United States Postal Service (USPS) mail carrier Eugene Gates Jr., who died on June 20, 2023, after collapsing while delivering mail on his route in a Dallas-area neighborhood in the midst of a heat wave that saw temperatures reach the 110s.

Within weeks of Gates’ passing, members of the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability penned a letter to USPS Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, voicing concerns over the working conditions of postal service employees, letter carriers in particular. The letter’s authors urged the USPS to implement policies designed to prevent heat-related deaths from occurring on the job, pointing out that Gates was not the first USPS carrier to die working in extreme temperatures.

Meanwhile, lawmakers in Florida—America’s hottest state—recently signed a bill that stops the state’s local governments from requiring heat protections for outdoor workers that are not already mandated under state or federal law.

On April 11, Florida Gov. DeSantis signed off on the legislation, which prohibits local governments from requiring heat and water breaks for outdoor workers. The bill “was a direct response to Miami-Dade County’s effort to require shade and water for construction, farm and other outdoor workers,” according to CBS News, which notes that the law also keeps Florida’s 66 other counties from requiring similar worker protections.

“It really wasn’t anything that was coming from me,” DeSantis told media outlets when asked about the bill, which goes into effect on July 1 of this year. “There was a lot of concern out of one county: Miami-Dade. They were pursuing what was going to cause a lot of problems down there.”

A recent study sought to better understand the sort of serious problems that exposure to extreme heat can cause for outdoor workers.

Using heart rate monitors and other devices to collect physiological data, researchers observed 33 construction workers for a full summer day. The study authors checked in with these workers at the end of the workday, in order to gather data on how hot and tired they felt at the  moment.

The previous night, each of the 33 study participants swallowed a pill-sized data collection device that stayed in their body for 24 hours measuring internal body temperature, allowing the researchers to continuously monitor and track internal body temperature.

The investigators found that 43% of the workers studied experienced a peak core temperature surpassing 100 degrees Fahrenheit, with 4% exceeding 101 degrees, even in outdoor conditions that were cooler than typical summer temperatures, according to the researchers.

While saying that such numbers were “not alarming,” the study authors also cautioned that permanent health effects could result from prolonged elevations in body temperature.

And, while their study focused solely on construction workers, the researchers said the findings illustrated the “substantial risk of heat-related health issues” that other outdoor workers face, and they stressed “the urgent need for strategies to protect the health and safety” of such workers.