Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed a law that prevents cities or counties from creating protections for workers who labor in the state's often extreme and dangerous heat.

Two million people in Florida, from construction to agriculture, work outside in often humid, blazing heat.

For years, many of them have asked for rules to protect them from heat: paid rest breaks, water, and access to shade when temperatures soar. After years of negotiations, such rules were on the agenda in Miami-Dade County, home to an estimated 300,000 outdoor workers.

[...]

The loss of the local rule was a major blow to Miami-Dade activists and workers who had hoped the county heat protection rules would be in place before summer.

[...]

The U.S. experienced its hottest-ever summer in 2023, and Florida recorded its hottest-ever July and August. The heat index, a measure that incorporates both temperature and humidity, stayed above 100 degrees Fahrenheit for 46 days in a row in Miami.

Construction workers often labor under dangerously hot, humid conditions in Florida, like during 2023's July heat wave. Heat records broke across the state during 2023's summer.

Despite the increasing risks, there are no federal rules regulating when it's too hot to work, even though thousands of heat-related injuries and dozens of deaths are reported across the U.S. every year. There is a federal requirement that employers keep workers safe on the job, and recommendations for how to do so, including protecting workers from extreme heat. But the guidance doesn't say exactly what those protections are or what to do when limits are surpassed.

A handful of states or local jurisdictions like Miami-Dade have attempted to create some protections. Some have succeeded, but more have stalled or failed.

[...]

One strategy, says Lupe Gonzalo, is to find alternative solutions while the policy-making slowly moves. She and her colleagues at the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a farmworker organization based in south Florida, have developed a community-led effort called the Fair Food Program.

Their organization has agreements with major food brands like Walmart and Chipotle—enormous buyers of the fresh produce their workers pick and prepare. The buyers require the agricultural growers to provide safe working conditions, including water, shade, and rest breaks on a schedule dictated by heat conditions ...