"Long-awaited Miami-Dade vote on heat protections for workers postponed until 2024", 8 November, 2023

Following hours of discussion, Miami-Dade commissioners chose to delay a long-awaited vote until next March on a controversial heat-related ordinance proposal that would protect outdoor workers in the agriculture and construction industries...

The proposal, which would represent the first of its kind in the South, would implement a heat exposure safety education programme, enact required 10 minute paid shaded rest and water breaks every two hours on high heat days, and set up a new County Office to enforce the heat standard rules...

Supporters say the ordinance would provide basic, necessary protections for farm and construction workers across the county...

Homestead-based farmworker Reyna Osorio told WLRN she’s afraid to speak up at work when experiencing heat illness symptoms, fearing she could be fired or have her pay docked for complaining.

“It seems unjust,” said Osorio, who feels some employers are more worried about their costs rather than the health of workers regularly exposed to the heat. “We’re trying to take care of our health and [my boss] doesn’t care about our health. He has no love for us, his workers”...

Opponents, including District 8 Commissioner Danielle Cohen Higgins, said the proposal isn’t fair and balanced, and could diminish the agriculture and construction businesses...

“This is not a heat standard. This is an overreaching and an egregious heat sanction on only two industries,” she said. “This ordinance could potentially kill industry”...

Supporters vowed to continue to push commissioners to pass the ordinance.

The commission’s vote over the summer followed a series of stories published in July by the Miami Herald, "Sizzling South Florida," that documented the deadly consequences of extreme heat caused by climate change on those working outdoors and the overall South Florida economy...