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Whereas a handful of member states have laws limiting working hours in extreme warmth, the thresholds range and many countries haven’t any nationwide warmth limits.
In keeping with analysis by the polling company Eurofound, 23 p.c of all staff throughout the EU had been being uncovered to excessive temperatures 1 / 4 of the time. That determine rises to 36 p.c in agriculture and business and to 38 p.c for building staff.
Earlier analysis has linked excessive temperatures to quite a few persistent situations and an elevated danger of office harm.
“Staff are on the frontline of the local weather disaster daily they usually want protections to match the ever-increasing hazard from excessive temperatures,” mentioned Claes-Mikael Stahl, deputy secretary common of the European Commerce Union Confederation.
The ETUC mentioned that the majority EU nations haven’t any most temperature laws for workplaces, though Belgium, Hungary and Latvia all have some curbs on exercise.
In France, the place there are at the moment no working temperature limits, 12 staff died because of warmth publicity in 2020 alone, the union mentioned.
‘Cannot ignore the hazard’
Spain, the place three staff died in excessive warmth final week, does have temperature limits in place, however just for sure professions.
A 60-year-old avenue cleaner on a one-month contract died in Madrid on Saturday, after he collapsed on the street from heatstroke whereas working yesterday.
On the time temperatures in Madrid neared 40C.
A 56-year-old warehouse employee in a Madrid suburb additionally died on Saturday after struggling heatstroke whereas on the job.
Safety forces on Thursday introduced the demise of a employee because of warmth in Paracuellos de Jarama, on the outskirts of the capital.
Final week, town reached a cope with unions to limit handbook avenue cleansing work to under 39C.
With world common temperatures greater than 1.1C hotter than the pre-Industrial period, Europe is being hit with increasingly more record-breaking scorching spells.
World heating will proceed to make lethal heatwaves extra frequent and intense with ever increased ranges of atmospheric carbon air pollution, scientists say.
The UN’s local weather science panel this 12 months warned that tens of hundreds of thousands extra folks can be subjected to excessive warmth days underneath 2C of warming; international locations’ local weather plans have Earth heading in the right direction to heat by 2.7C.
“Heatwaves may be deadly for folks working unprotected from the solar, as we have already witnessed in Spain this summer season,” mentioned Stahl.
“Staff are on the frontline of the local weather disaster daily they usually want protections to match the ever-increasing hazard from excessive temperatures.”
He mentioned the EU wanted continent-wide laws on most working temperatures, since “the climate does not respect nationwide borders”.
“Politicians cannot proceed to disregard the hazard to our most susceptible staff from the consolation of their airconditioned places of work,” he mentioned.
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