Earlier this summer, workers gathered at the state Capitol with a message to lawmakers: their jobs, they said, are becoming too dangerous in the blazing Arizona heat.
“Heat protections now, before someone dies!” the workers chanted.
Tony Pineda used to work as a roofer in Tucson. He told the crowd that water was sometimes available on jobsites, but usually it was on the ground, not easily accessible for workers who would spend hours at a time on the roof in the sun. One day he started feeling nausea, a severe headache and other symptoms of heat exhaustion — he was so unwell that he left work in the middle of a shift.
“On the way home I started to feel cramps in my arms and legs,” Pineda said in Spanish. “When I got home, my wife was scared because my clothes were completely drenched with sweat.”
Pineda recovered, but the experience shook him.
“I think I got lucky that time,” Pineda said.
Heat deaths and illnesses in workplaces are likely underreported
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration says heat-related deaths, illnesses and injuries are likely vastly underreported in workplaces. But OSHA estimates about 559 workers across the U.S. die each year from workplace heat exposure, and more than 24,000 workers experience heat-related illnesses or injuries annually.
The Phoenix metro area, where the majority of Arizona’s population lives, averages 111 days per year above 100 degrees. Statewide, more than 1 million people work in farming, landscaping, construction, delivery services or other industries that expose them to extreme heat on the job, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council. But Arizona has never had state regulations specifically to protect workers from heat.
As temperatures become more extreme, more workers are calling for change.
“We’re not asking for anything extravagant,” Pineda said, “Water, shade.”
In a letter to Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs this summer, more than 30 labor groups called for the Arizona Division of Occupational Safety and Health to adopt a statewide heat safety standard. In addition to regulations around water and shade, they want requirements for rest breaks and training for how to respond to heat-related emergencies on the job. They said regulations should also include clear measures for enforcement.
“The data is just very clear that an enforceable standard is the most lifesaving intervention” said Katelyn Parady, a Phoenix-based staffer with the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health.
Seven other states, including neighboring California and Nevada, have now adopted state-level standards for workplace heat safety. A study this year from the Center for Labor and a Just Economy at Harvard Law School found California’s heat safety standard resulted in a 43% decrease in outdoor worker deaths.
Arizona has made efforts to identify heat risks in workplaces
The Hobbs administration says Arizona workers do have protections from heat.
The Industrial Commission of Arizona declined to provide an interview for this story, but during a May press conference, Commission Director Gaetano Testini said workers are covered under OSHA’s General Duty Clause.
“The General Duty Clause requires that employers provide a safe work environment free from any hazards,” Testini said.
And Testini said ADOSH, which is part of the Industrial Commission, in 2023 launched an State Emphasis Program directing inspectors to look out for heat risks in workplaces.
According to ADOSH, more than 600 Arizona employers have been trained on heat safety since the Emphasis Program was implemented. And ADOSH credits the program with a dramatic decrease in workers’ compensation claims related to heat. The division reports 441 heat-related claims were filed in 2023; the following year there were 192 claims.
Testini said the state could build on that program in the future.
“In order for us to develop a statewide standard, there’s a process, and the first part of that process is collecting data, and that’s what we’ve been doing over the last two years,” Testini said.
This year, in an executive order, Hobbs directed ADOSH to create a new Workplace Heat Safety Task Force with representatives from industries including roofing, construction and firefighting. The group will put together new guidelines to define heat risk in the workplace.
But Parady’s concern is that the new Task Force has only been charged with recommending guidelines, not necessarily an enforceable set of regulations.
Parady said guidelines may work well for honest employers, but she said, “we know that the people who are most likely to die or get hurt, they’re not the folks who are working for high-road employers. These are the lowest-wage workers and they’re often working in the most exploitative industries.”
State lawmakers and city councils have made efforts to establish heat regulations
ADOSH could establish a heat standard on its own through a rulemaking process. But some Arizona democrats have attempted to establish workplace regulations for heat through legislation.
Rep. Mariana Sandoval introduced HB 2790 this year, which would have required the Industrial Commission of Arizona to adopt a heat safety standard for all workplaces and more specific regulations for industries including agriculture, landscaping, and mail and delivery services. Rep. Alma Hernandez introduced HB 2382, which would have amended state employment laws to require employers to develop plans to mitigate heat-related illness among their workers.
Those bills did not get hearings. Republican chairs of the committees to which the bills were assigned did not respond to KJZZ’s request for comment.
While efforts to establish rules at the state legislature have stalled, the cities of Phoenix, Tucson and Tempe, along with Pima County over the last couple of years have adopted heat safety ordinances for city or county employees and contractors.
“These local ordinances are super important,” Parady said. “But they only cover a really small group of workers.”
Federal protections are stalled
The push for more heat protections in Arizona comes as similar rules are under consideration at the federal level. OSHA proposed a nationwide heat standard last year, under the Biden administration.
“[It includes] mandatory 15 minute breaks every two hours, a heat-illness plan where everyone’s trained as to what to do, how to recognize the symptoms, and it’s tied to a heat index, so the hotter it gets, the more level of safety net there are,” said Eric Gregorovic, president of the Arizona State Association of Letter Carriers.
Gregoravic said he thinks a nationwide heat standard would make him and his fellow United States Postal Service workers safer.
“We see probably 50 to 60 heat illness cases throughout the Valley every year,” Gregoravic said. “Recently we had a carrier out in Chandler who had passed out in his vehicle — a customer found him.”
But some Arizona business leaders have expressed concerns over the proposed federal standard.
“Existing standards and programs already address these concerns” the Arizona Farm Bureau Federation wrote in a public comment about the proposed OSHA rule.
“Companies operating in consistently high-heat regions, like ours in Arizona, would face a disproportionate compliance burden under these guidelines compared to those in milder climates,” Phoenix-based Felix Construction Company wrote in another comment.
New state or federal protections won’t come this summer
There’s no clear timeline for OSHA to take action to implement the federal heat standard.
Parady said she doubts the federal standard, proposed under the Biden administration, will advance under the Trump administration, which has promised to roll back workplace regulations.
And, she said, “even if there is a federal standard that’s put into place, there’s still a clear need for a state standard because the conditions that we face [in Arizona] are just so much more extreme.”
At the state level, Hobbs’ Workplace Heat Safety Task Force has until the end of the year to submit its recommendations for heat safety. The ADOSH Safety and Health Committee will then review the Task Force’s recommendations and the Industrial Commission of Arizona will determine the next steps beyond that.
At the rally, workers like Tony Pineda said they want action fast, as Arizona’s temperatures are quickly becoming more extreme.
“It’s a moral responsibility,” Pineda said.
