As temperatures in Baltimore neared 100F earlier this month, 36-year-old sanitation worker Ronald Silver II died after he was found lying on the hood of a car and asking for water.
It’s the kind of tragic workplace heat-related death that advocates say could have been avoided with the right labor protections. So this week, during what will probably be the US’s hottest summer on record, frontline workers are organizing actions in 13 cities across the country, raising the alarm about workplace heat exposure.
“We have to keep struggling until the right to water, shade and rest is given to all workers in this country,” Lourdes Cardenas, an agricultural worker with United Farm Workers in California, told reporters on Monday speaking via translator.
TVNL Comment: What an outrage that this can happen in the richest country in the world. For Heaven's sake, we're talking about water.