Outdoor workers rally downtown, urge Miami-Dade County to pass heat protections
Roughly 50 of Miami-Dade County’s 100,000 outdoor workers rallied downtown Wednesday to urge county commissioners to pass a law requiring companies to protect their employees from the heat.
WeCount, an advocacy group that represents outdoor workers in fields like agriculture and construction, has been pushing for this legislation since 2021 as part of its Que Calor campaign. Among the provisions in WeCount’s proposed legislation: the right for workers to take a paid 10-minute break to drink water and rest in the shade every two hours if the heat index rises above 90 degrees.
Read More: In Florida, the heat can kill. But there are no laws to protect its many outdoor workers
WeCount is also calling for the county to create a new Office of Workplace Health and Safety to enforce the rules and roll out an education program to teach workers and supervisors how to prevent hospital visits and deaths due to heat stroke and dehydration.
Workers gathered outside Stephen P. Clark Government Center, where the county commission met Wednesday but didn’t discuss outdoor worker protections.
“Today, extreme heat isn’t part of the county commissioners’ agenda,” said WeCount executive director Oscar Londoño. The group is calling for the commission to take up an extreme heat bill at its next meeting on July 6. “We think outdoor workers can’t wait any longer. We’ve been waiting for years and we’ve been demanding basic life saving protections like water, shade and rest.”
The rally comes a little more than a week after a Miami Herald project highlighted the impact of extreme heat on outdoor workers and the complete absence of heat-related protections for South Florida workers at the local, state and federal level.
Union leaders, a physician and a WeCount member who works in a nursery spoke during a press conference about the urgency of protecting workers from extreme heat. Meanwhile, a group of workers laid on the ground under white sheets to call attention to the 34 people a year, on average, who die from heat-related illnesses in Miami-Dade County.
This climate report is funded by Florida International University, the Knight Foundation and the David and Christina Martin Family Foundation in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners. The Miami Herald retains editorial control of all content.