With 2023 set to be the hottest year on record, workplace heat safety practices remained a top concern for employers and regulators.
Many employers took precautions in the summer months to protect workers from heatstroke and other heat-related illnesses by installing hydration stations and monitoring employees, among other things.
And the Biden administration implemented several measures, including increased inspections of worksites in industries such as agriculture and construction, and the issuance of the first Hazard Alert for heat, which affirms that workers have heat-related protections under federal law.
The story on the federal measures — and employers’ sometimes underwhelmed response —was the eighth-most-read workers compensation-related story on the Business Insurance website in 2023.
Other organizations also took action on heat stress during the year. For example, in August the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health rolled out a training program to help miners better handle incidents of heat stress.
But workers continued to suffer heat-related illnesses, which in some cases were fatal. In June, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited a Florida labor contractor after an immigrant farmworker died from an apparent work-related heat illness.