Anisa Khalifa: 2024 was the hottest summer on record. For people who work outside, their jobs are getting more difficult and dangerous every year.
Aaron Sanchez-Guerra: The work isn't changing, but the climate is changing.
Anisa Khalifa: And the danger of rising heat is exacerbated by vague workplace protections.
Celeste Gracia: Without these heat-specific protections, workers can die, workers have died, and workers will continue to die.
Anisa Khalifa: I'm Anisa Khalifa This is The Broad Side, where we tell stories from our home at the crossroads of the South. This week, I talk with two of my colleagues about their special report, Scorched Workers, and the push to get outdoor workers protection from extreme heat in a world that's only going to get hotter.
Aaron Sanchez-Guerra: I am Aaron Sanchez-Guerra. I am the race, class, and communities reporter here at WUNC.
Anisa Khalifa: Hey Aaron, great to have you on the show for the first time.
Aaron Sanchez-Guerra: Thank you.
Anisa Khalifa: So lay out the problem for us. Why is heat in North Carolina so dangerous?
Aaron Sanchez-Guerra: Heat in North Carolina. It's so dangerous because we have multi billion dollar agriculture industry that thrives on the unique climate of North Carolina and it's hot and humid here and it's made us number one in the country for tobacco production among the top five producers in the country for sweet potato and that industry also thrives on roughly 15 to 25,000 seasonal migrant workers who come to United States for several months at a time each year under a program known as the H2A guest worker program. It's a federal program, and North Carolina is one of the biggest users of this program. And we've had at least 15 heat related deaths in the workplace in North Carolina from 2008 until now. And. It's likely that heat related deaths in North Carolina are underreported due to the various symptoms of heat illness that can be mistaken for a different cause of death. The heat, Anisa, is compounded, it's mixed in, it's made worse, it's made more intense by the work conditions. That's the key thing that we looked at in our project, scorched workers. It's not just the physical climate that surrounds these workers, but it's also the work environment.
Anisa Khalifa: What are the specifics about that work environment, aside from them being out in the heat during the daytime? What is it about that work environment that exposes them to this deadly heat?
Aaron Sanchez-Guerra: Yes. The three important things of working outdoors, it's rest, water, and shade. And whether you're a U. S. citizen or you're undocumented or you have a seasonal visa, your access to these three things, rest, water, and shade, is trivialized. It's put in jeopardy because of the work that you're doing and because of the demand of the work that you're doing. Many workers, they don't speak English, they speak Spanish. Many of them, Spanish is their second language. Indigenous languages are their first language. Asking for extra breaks, asking for extra concessions, it may mean retaliation. It may mean not getting called back to work in the United States the next year. They'll say to themselves, today, I will forego an appropriate break, even though I'm dehydrated, even though I'm feeling faint, even though I'm feeling anxious. I'm not going to speak up because it may cost me my job.
Anisa Khalifa: Tell me which farm workers you talked to and what did they tell you?
Aaron Sanchez-Guerra: I'll talk about a worker and his name is Fidel. And I'll only use his first name because he only authorized me to use his first name out of fear of retaliation from his former employer because he, Fidel, is a worker who fled his job. He fled the employer provided farmworker housing in southeastern North Carolina because of the conditions that he was facing. And it wasn't just the heat and the environmental conditions. It was mainly the labor conditions compounded with the environment.
Fidel: No tenemo respiracion, no tenemos el aire para respirar, estamos abajo...
Translator: The truth is, we don't have air to breathe. We're low, close to the ground, cutting the leaves without stopping, without brakes. In the farm where I was the farmer in charge of tobacco, never liked that. We'd take a while to catch our breath or to get some shade for a few minutes. She didn't like that.
Aaron Sanchez-Guerra: FideI was pulled out of a tobacco field in the first few days of August this year 'cause he had passed out. He fell unconscious. And he doesn't know why exactly it happened. He says it was the heat, it was the pesticides, it was the tobacco. He doesn't know because he didn't get a medical diagnosis. Anisa, when he passed out, the workers had to pull him out of the field. Fidel was just told to be placed inside a truck with air conditioning until he could come to.
Translator: I left midday and the boss was bothered saying if I kept it up, she was just going to fire me from the job. It's just really hard to work here in tobacco.
Aaron Sanchez-Guerra: That frightened him, to not have the agency to see a doctor, to see a lawyer or clinic to help him.
Anisa Khalifa: You also talked to workers that we don't normally think about being susceptible to extreme heat. What was their experience like?
Aaron Sanchez-Guerra: Hundreds of miles away from those fields, there's a whole different workplace with outdoor workers that are just as impacted by heat, and that's airport sanitation workers at the Charlotte Douglas International Airport.
Unidentified Announcer: Welcome to Charlotte Douglas International Airport. Recognized as one of the world's top 10 busiest airports, Charlotte is known as America's…
Aaron Sanchez-Guerra: Who are these workers? When you're getting out of the plane, you'll see, uh, people come in wearing fluorescent vests and they start picking up the trash. They start working, but you don't really get to see most of their work when you're on the plane. In fact, you'll see them waiting for all the passengers to leave. They come in, they begin to work in a plane where the air conditioning is turned off. And after that, they go to another plane and they're on the tarmac, on the pavement. And we know that science says that heat is more intense on impervious surfaces. It's more intense on the concrete. These men and women are rushing from plane to plane. They're rushing to clean these cabin cleaners, these planes, and they have a limited window of time where they can do to work and they're working under that pressure, compounded with the heat. And I'll quote one worker specifically, Maribel Macbeath, a worker who is of a Puerto Rican background. She told me, I want to work and I want to be able to breathe.
Maribel Macbeath: And sometimes, you know, you feel like you want to pass out. You feel sick to your stomach. And sometimes you feel fainted, you know. And it's not easy trying to do your work and do it correctly, you know.
Aaron Sanchez-Guerra: And it brought me back to the fields hundreds of miles away.
A worker telling me, I went into a field with no oxygen. I couldn't breathe. And it's literally and figuratively, it's, uh, you know, it leaves you breathless.
Anisa Khalifa: You mentioned that there have been deaths related to heat in North Carolina. You reported on a vigil that happened in September that was organized by workers and activists. What did the people there have to share?
Aaron Sanchez-Guerra: My co reporter, Celeste, attended a vigil where they were mourning yet another farm worker. They were mourning Juan Jose Ceballos, who was working his first season in North Carolina, they were crying out. They were saying not one more death, not one more dead worker. You know, they were mourning the death of Juan Jose. I visited the farmworker housing where he lived, and I asked around, and I found Juan Jose's brother, and I approached him and introduced myself. I told him I wanted to speak to him about his brother, about his employer, and he just looked at me, and in a very emotionless, sort of stoic way, and then he kind of chuckled, and then he said, Sorry, but I can't say anything. I don't have anything to say. And I asked him, Are you, are you afraid? You know, are you going to get in trouble? He told me more or less, something like that.
I just want to point out that poignant example that one of the workers who is being mourned, his brother is still working in the fields for the same employer. We're at a moment in time where more than one farm worker vigil is being organized by a very robust group of, of activists and workers who are trying to get the attention from a state and federal level to this issue to do something about it.
Anisa Khalifa: Coming up, we talk with WNC environment reporter Celeste Igracia about heat safety standards in the Southeast and why they're on the ballot this November.
Hey Celeste.
Celeste Gracia:Hey Anisa.
Anisa Khalifa: Thanks for joining us.
Celeste Gracia:Thank you for having me.
Anisa Khalifa: So Celeste, let's talk about heat safety standards. Our state is known for its heat, especially in the summer. Do we currently have heat safety standards in North Carolina?
Celeste Gracia: The short answer is no. There are technically some federal rules that generally mandate a workplace free from hazards. This is under OSHA's General Duty Clause. OSHA is the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The General Duty Clause very vaguely says that employers have to provide a workplace that's free from hazards that could cause death, or are likely to cause death, or serious physical harm.
That's a lot of jargon. I'm quoting that directly. So, some people might consider heat a hazard that is likely to cause death. or serious physical harm, but then we get into the legality of it and the implementation and the enforcement of this. We actually spoke to several advocates who told us that the general duty clause is not specific enough to protect workers from heat.
Anisa Khalifa: How does North Carolina compare to the rest of the southeast? And how does our region compare to the rest of the country when it comes to heat safety standards?
Celeste Gracia: So, states do have the option to implement their own state level heat standard, and there are five states across the country that do have state level heat standards, including California, Oregon, and Washington. Those five states that do have state level heat safety standards, none of those states are in the southeastern U. S. No states, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, none of these states have any of these state level heat protections. Actually, it's the opposite in Florida. This summer, state Republicans there passed a law blocking cities and counties from implementing local heat protections for workers.
Anisa Khalifa: So this summer, the Biden administration proposed the first ever federal heat safety standard. What does that proposal entail? And why? And how would that impact North Carolina?
Celeste Gracia: The proposal right now is still very general and very broad, but the intention behind it is to provide outdoor workers with heat specific protections, which would focus on water, rest, and shade. What this proposal means specifically for North Carolina depends on the North Carolina Department of Labor, and even more specifically, it depends on next month's election for Labor Commissioner.
Anisa Khalifa: Why is it so important who gets elected to the role of Labor Commissioner?
Celeste Gracia: For context, North Carolina is one of a few states that elects its Labor Commissioner. North Carolina has had a Republican as Labor Commissioner since 2000. The Republican incumbent, Josh Dobson, is not running for re-election. So we have two new candidates who are now running for this position. We spoke to both of them for our reporting project, and the two of them have very different approaches when it comes to heat safety protections for outdoor workers. So on the Democratic side, we have Braxton Winston. He's a former mayor pro tem of Charlotte with a background as an anti racist activist. Winston has made heat a central issue in his campaign. He says North Carolina needs more laws to protect workers from extreme heat.
Braxton Winston: A human life is priceless and nobody should be considered dispensable.
Celeste Gracia: On the Republican side, Luke Farley says North Carolina already has enough enforceable protections. He is running as the business friendly candidate who would continue conservative leadership in the State Department of Labor.
Luke Farley: We have a strong set of labor and employment laws in this state. businesses across the board, big or small, to comply with them. And we want to help the, especially small businesses meet that compliance burden. And we want to protect workers. We also need to be focused on working families and the cost of implementing a complex regulation are just going to be passed on to those working families. And I'm concerned about them too.
Celeste Gracia: So if, or when those federal rules are finalized, then the states must adopt those rules as written or modify them and then implement the modified version. Finally, the Republican candidate says that he will modify those rules to make them more specific to North Carolina. Winston says the same thing. He also wants to have the a North Carolina specific heat standard. The major difference between the two is that Farley declined to say whether or not he would implement a state standard even if the federal government doesn't go through with its standard, whereas Winston is committing to implement a state level heat standard regardless of federal action.
Anisa Khalifa: This Biden administration proposal is still only a proposal, right? So how likely is that to actually go through in the sort of format that it's in right now?
Celeste Gracia: It's not likely. It is more likely that this will not be officially implemented simply because there are so many legal and political challenges associated with pushing this through.
Anisa Khalifa: Do you still see value in this proposal, even if it doesn't pass? As you said, it's likely not to pass. Is there still value in this proposal from the Biden administration?
Celeste Gracia: According to the people that we spoke to, yes, there is still tremendous value in this proposal because it acts as a template for employers to follow. Employers can still get cited for workplace hazards. So, looking at this proposal and treating it as a resource or as a tool, to look at what types of heat related protections should I be providing for my workers? That is the value of having employers take it upon themselves and using the proposal as a guide.
Anisa Khalifa: So, there seem to be different ways to address heat safety protections, whether it's state regulations, employer rules, or even community led protections.
Is one of these more viable than the others, and can you break down how these all play out?
Celeste Gracia: By and large, what we heard is a few consistent messages, which is, one, we need to take heat seriously. We, as a society, need to take heat more seriously. And two, protecting outdoor workers is going to require a patchwork of solutions at the federal, state, and local level and hyper local levels. Employers do currently right now have the opportunity to implement their own types of heat protections for their own employees at the local levels. I would point to a lot of research that's being done in Raleigh and in Durham to map out urban heat islands. To look at the different factors of what makes one part of Raleigh hotter than another neighborhood, and then that goes into impervious surfaces and tree shade, all of that information is going toward informing local solutions.
To the other point of taking heat more seriously, being here in the South, We know it's hot and it's a cultural thing. We feel like, oh, well, it's hot, it's, it's just the way it is. I mean, we're supposed to be able to take it. But what I heard from people that I interviewed is this kind of heat that we're experiencing right now today is not the kind of heat that our grandparents grew up with. This heat is fueled by climate change. And I think a very important example is Hurricane Helene and the devastation in Western North Carolina. It is a fact that Helene was able to become so massive and so intense because of warming ocean waters. Those warming ocean waters caused by extreme heat, caused by climate change, that's why Helene was able to make it so far inland and cause so much devastation.
Anisa Khalifa: And looking toward the future, as we know that it's going to get hotter and hotter, is heat safety on the ballot this election, would you say?
Celeste Gracia: Yes, I think that is completely fair to say that implementing heat safety standards for outdoor workers is on the ballot next month for North Carolina. And another factor to consider is the presidential election. If Vice President Kamala Harris is elected, it is very likely that this federal heat proposal will continue as it's currently planned. However, also referencing interviews that we had, if former President Trump is reelected, it's very possible that that Trump and his cabinet will stop this rulemaking process. So heat protections for outdoor workers are on the ballot next month, not only at the state level, but arguably also at the federal level.
Anisa Khalifa: This episode of the Broadside was produced by Charlie Shelton Ormond and edited by Jared Walker. Wilson Sayre is our executive producer. If you'd like to check out more of Aaron and Celeste's reports, Scorched Workers. We've dropped some links in this week's show notes. The Broadside is a production of WUNC North Carolina Public Radio and is part of the NPR Network. You can email us at broadside@wunc.org. If you enjoyed the show, leave us a rating, a review, or share it with a friend. I'm Anisa Khalifa. Thanks for listening, y'all. We'll be back next week.