"RICHMOND - A proposal to exclude prisons from California's long-awaited rules to protect indoor workers from extreme heat threatens to delay implementation until well into the summer or kill off the safeguards altogether, labour rights advocates say.
The state's Occupational Safety & Health Standards Board submitted revised standards in May that included the exemption for prisons and jails – months after an earlier version was delayed over apparent cost concerns.
Worker advocates were stunned over the sudden decision to exclude correctional facilities from the heat rules – a move they said appeared to be a backdoor way to bury the regulations.
"The prison issue touches a nerve," said Stephen Knight, executive director of Worksafe, a workplace safety advocacy group based in the city of Oakland."
David Sherfinski reports for the Thomson Reuters Foundation June 10, 2024.
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