A maximum indoor temperature working law giving people a day off if workplace temperatures surpass 30C should be mandated by government, a new report recommends.
The report by the Fabian Society thinktank highlights inequalities in who bears the brunt of the impacts of climate breakdown and puts responsibility on bosses and landlords to stop people from overheating.
An increasing number of people are dying from excessive heat in the UK. More than 4,500 people died in England in 2022 due to high temperatures, which was the largest figure on record. Between 1988 and 2022, almost 52,000 deaths associated with the hottest days were recorded in England, with a third of them occurring since 2016, data from the Office for National Statistics shows. During the same 35-year period analysed, more than 2,000 people died in Wales due to the warm temperatures.
Maybe they could retrofit air conditioning for worker safety?
I work on an installation where there’s a forge. I took a tour of it when I first started working and there’s no way in hell you can effectively air condition that place without being extremely wasteful. Maybe I’m wrong and other forges have figured it out, but I’d love to see proof of it.
Nah, no way to do it with molten metal being right there. It’s a part of the job, and a reason why a lot of countries don’t have a “maximum temperature” law, but have a “minimum temperature” one.
That sounds like an edge case that may need more creative solutions, or implementing breaks, etc. But I’d wager that for most workplaces this isn’t the case.
You can get air fed suits for toxic environments. I have seen these used in car manufacturing. From accounts of the lads there, they were very heavy to work with.