At least 384 workers have died from environmental heat exposure in the U.S. in the last decade, according to an investigation by journalists at NPR and Columbia Journalism Investigations. Among the findings from their analysis of hundreds of pages of documents is that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), whose primary responsibility is to protect workers from hazards, has failed to adopt a national heat standard to safeguard workers against rapidly rising temperatures, resulting in an enforcement system rife with problems.
What’s worse is OSHA has known about the dangers of heat — and how to prevent deaths — for decades.