In scramble to protect workers against heat, California officials exclude prisons from new rules

California Department of Corrections officers are not worthy of workplace safety rules according to the state’s workplace safety agency. At a March 21 meeting, the state board overseeing workplace safety standards was primed to approve regulations to protect workers from heat. Shortly before the start of the meeting, however, officials from the state’s Finance Department, which must sign off on new workplace rules, intervened. They raised concerns about the costs that California prisons would incur trying to adhere to the new rules, saying the price tag for cooling correctional facilities could run “in the neighborhood of billions of dollars.”

Now, California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health, or Cal/OSHA, said it will revise the proposed indoor heat rule to exclude state and local correctional facilities. The announcement that correctional facilities will be carved out from the rule was made by the agency’s standards board Thursday and came amid considerable pressure from labor groups to get protections in place for their members.

Under the proposed indoor heat rule, employers would have to provide cooling areas and monitor workers taking breaks to cool down for signs of heat illness when temperatures inside reach or surpass 82 degrees. There are protections in place for prisoners already when the temperature reaches 90 degrees or above, but no regulations are in place to protect correctional workers.

Often correctional officers are forced to work 8 to 16 hours in over 100 degree heat, with no consideration or plans for their safety.

Every year correctional officers suffer from heat-related emergencies, but no efforts have been made to protect these state workers. Regular under-reported inmate assaults, constant stresses from inmates and management are just some of the other things correctional officers must face daily. There was hope some mitigation for the heat issue would arrive, but correctional officers are not important workers according to many state agencies.