Anyone who has been outside lately knows the heat this summer has been brutal, even by Florida standards.
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If walking outside in a late-August afternoon used to feel like a sauna, it now feels like walking into an oven …. that’s set on broil … and somehow has 98% humidity.
By last month, Central Florida had already endured 48 days of temperatures of at least 95 degrees, way above normal. Nationally, we saw the hottest July in 132 years of record-keeping.
But if you think it’s too rough for you to play golf or lounge by the pool, imagine how it feels to pick tomatoes or nail roof shingles.
Now imagine doing that back-breaking work under the blazing sun for eight hours without guaranteed, easy access to water, shade or even first aid provisions.
Maybe that sounds dystopian. It’s actually Florida law.
Two years ago, Florida lawmakers voted to ban cities and counties from passing laws that would ensure outdoor workers have access to basics like “water consumption” and “cooling measures” … the kinds of things most people would provide a stray dog.
This is a state, mind you, that routinely makes headlines for outdoor workers suffering and even dying on the job.
When I covered this cruel legislation in 2024, I labeled it “The most shameful law Florida passed this year,” and most people strongly agreed. Both Democrats and Republican readers were appalled that any elected official — much less the majority in the Florida Legislature — would support such inhumane indecency.
Well, they did. And quite a few of them are on the ballot again this year, hoping you won’t remember who they are.
I’m here to make sure you do.
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The lawmakers who voted against allowing new heat-safety protections — and who are on local ballots again this year — are Blaise Ingoglia, Jason Brodeur, Josie Tomkow, Doug Bankson, Webster Barnaby, Rachel Plakon and Taylor Yarkosky.
Ingolgia is now running for CFO. Brodeur and Tomkow for the Florida Senate. The others are running for the Florida House.
All are Republicans. And several claim quite loudly to be men and women of faith … though I wonder whether any would stand before God and also claim they were doing his work when voting to deny his children provisions for water and shade.
Many Republicans didn’t originally support such inhumane policy. In fact, back in 2022, some even led a push enact statewide heat-safety regulations.
But then the state’s business lobby got involved.
Organizations like the Florida Chamber of Commerce — which was also recently exposed as being part of the Hope Florida scandal — actually threatened lawmakers.
A Florida Chamber vice president sent legislators an email, warning them that the chamber would not only be watching how they voted, but double-weight their heat-safety votes on the group’s annual “How They Voted” report card. The message was clear: Any lawmaker who dared to side with humane work conditions would pay the price.
The next time you see a politician boast about getting a perfect score from the Florida Chamber, remember what they had to do to earn it.
A handful of Republicans from each chamber refused to bow to pressure. (None of the principled holdouts were from Central Florida.) The vast majority of GOP lawmakers, though, agreed to do the business lobby’s bidding.
Still, these politicians knew how awful they looked. So legislators waited until the last day of their session to pass House Bill 433. And Gov. Ron DeSantis — a guy who often signs bills at elaborately staged press conferences — hid behind closed doors when signing this one into law.
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For its part, the state’s business lobby offered a variety of excuses for why it opposes locally enacted heat-safety protections. Most were ridiculous.
They claimed that virtually all employers already provide such things … which makes it pretty odd, then, that they’d be so opposed to enshrining those protections in law.
They also claimed that federal regulations already demand all these protections for workers … which is patently untrue. OSHA regulations include a “general duty clause” that broadly says employers should provide safe work environments. But the agency’s website explicitly says: “OSHA does not have a specific regulation regarding heat stress.”
Water must be provided. But farmworker advocates say some work sites keep water far enough away that it’s not convenient or it’s where workers would lose pay if they decided to go get it.
“And there’s absolutely no provision for shade at all,” said Jeannie Economos, the environmental health project coordinator for the Farmworker Association of Florida.
In short, this state’s business lobby simply didn’t want to be told that they have to treat employees like human beings. So before we wrap up, I think you should hear from some of these humans.
The Farmworker Association has interviewed many outdoor workers about their experiences with the heat in recent years and shared their reports with me.
One came from a 50-year-old mother who works at a nursery and said the heat gives her severe headaches and makes her nauseous. So she takes painkillers to finish her shifts, saying: “I have to keep working because I still have children who depend on me and my husband, and we need to keep moving forward.”
Another, a nursery worker, said she’s grateful for her job, but struggles lifting 40-pound potted plants on especially hot days. She wears a bandana to protect her from sunburn, but says it makes breathing tough. She also takes daily pain medication and says her employer has never provided training on heat stress.
And there was a stucco worker who said his worksite doesn’t provide easy access to bathrooms with running water, leaving his crew to search for ways to cool down at nearby gas stations.
At this point, there may be some people thinking: Well, I bet many of these folks are undocumented workers. I’d like to kindly ask those people to shut up … unless they’re willing to harvest all of their own fruits and vegetables.
Also, many of these people who perform outdoor work are, in fact, fully documented, here on work visas or natural-born citizens. Those who aren’t are most at risk of being exploited.
And all are human beings.
I honestly don’t believe that any politician of any political strip originally ran for office so they could vote against “appropriate first-aid measures.”
But it doesn’t really matter why you ran. It matters what you do when you get there. And if you cave to political pressure on an important issue, then you caved the only time it really mattered.
‘It’s too hot for us’: Warmer-than-average temperatures continue this week in Central Florida
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