‘Your body is completely drained’: US workers toil in heatwaves with no protections

On 23 June, Shae Parker had to leave her shift early at a gas station in Columbia, South Carolina, to go to the emergency room due to heat exhaustion; she wasn't paid for missing the rest of her shift. The air conditioning at her work has been on the fritz for weeks, she said, and her station heats up easily as the sun beams through its large windows.

"I got nauseated, overheated, lightheaded," she said. "We don't have free water, we don't have a water level on the soda machine, the ice machine is broken, so we have to buy water. The last few weeks it's been extremely hot. It's very hard to breathe when you're lightheaded and experiencing dizziness. The fatigue is like 10 times worse because your body is completely drained. I had to get two bags of fluid from being dehydrated even though I was drinking water."

Millions of Americans faced dangerous temperatures earlier this month as a heat dome blanketed the midwest and eastern US. The National Weather Service issued a heat advisory for much of South Carolina as temperatures hit the 90sF (32C).

Yet, workers across the country who toil in the heat both indoors and outdoors have to get through the summer without any heat protections in the workplace. Like Parker, many workers are left to try to treat their heat stress symptoms on their own.

This past June was the hottest month of June on record worldwide, while July 2023 to June 2024 have been the hottest 12 months on record, with 2024 on pace to break 2023 as the hottest year on record.

The Biden administration announced the proposal of an Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Osha) rule to protect 36 million US workers from the heat on 2 July. But implementation won't likely occur for several more years as the release of the rule proposal is just the third of seven steps in Osha's rule-making process. It could face challenges in courts, causing further delays, or be derailed altogether if Donald Trump wins the 2024 election. The rule provides more robust rules and higher fines on employers to protect workers.

Destiny Mervin, a restaurant worker in Atlanta, Georgia, and member of the Union of Southern Service Workers, said she has been constantly sweating during work and has had to change shirts during her shift because of how hot she has been.

"Someone fainted two weeks ago and the week before that, someone had a seizure," Mervin said in a press release. "A worker shouldn't have to die for Popeyes for employers to take unbearable heat seriously."

In 2023, an estimated 2,300 people in the US died from heat-related illness, the highest record of heat-related deaths in 45 years.

"The excessive heat the US has experienced in the last month is particularly dangerous to the people who have to work in it - hundreds of thousands of workers succumb to heat-related illness, injury and death each year," said Rebecca Dixon, president and CEO of the National Employment Law Project.

"The risk of workplace heat dangers is especially acute for workers of color, who are more likely to work in jobs that expose them to excessive heat as a result of occupational segregation," Dixon said." "As human-caused climate change produces more extreme temperatures, the need for strong federal heat protections is becoming more urgent every summer."

Priscilla Hoyle, an airplane cabin cleaner at Charlotte Douglas international airport, has gotten sick and had to go home twice in the past year due to heat exhaustion, with the most recent incident just a few weeks ago. Both times she wasn't provided any medical treatment when she got sick on the job.

"I got really sick, I could hardly breathe, I had to run off the plane and I was standing on the side throwing up," Hoyle said. "It's very draining, it's very tiring. You have to walk from concourse to concourse in nothing but heat. You're dripping in sweat and you can't hydrate."

Damarkus Hudson has also worked as an airplane cabin cleaner at Charlotte Douglas international airport in North Carolina for two years where he is constantly exposed to the heat without adequate protections or support, he claimed.

Last year, Hudson passed out on the job due to heat exhaustion and was offered no medical treatment. He was instead only given time to drink water and cool down until his shift ended shortly after the incident.

"The break room was full and I tried to go outside to get some fresh air, but there wasn't any breeze and I just passed out, I couldn't cool down," Hudson said.

He noted a coworker poured water on him to cool him down, which sent him into shock, and that other workers have experienced similar symptoms on the job.

He cleans four to five planes an hour in the sweltering heat, often walking long distances between concourses in the airport, and he said the air conditioning in the vehicles they travel in between planes doesn't always work.

"We're always exposed to the heat. Working in the heat, you get nauseated, feel sick, and fatigued," he added. "We don't get enough water and when we do, it's usually not cold water, and we don't get extra breaks to cool down."

LaShonda Barber, a trash truck driver at Charlotte airport, said heat issues impact airport workers across the US. She claimed the trucks they use don't have working air conditioning, that she and her workers are rarely provided water or rest breaks, which makes the heat impact even worse as the job is already physically demanding when its not hot outside.

"There are a lot of people who have been hospitalized, passing out from this heat," said Barber. "We're sweating so much. We're not getting time to get water into our bodies. We're human - the same way you get hot, we get hot."