Categories: News

No air conditioning, no fans, just some extra Gatorades: Workers in the Pacific Northwest were forced to swelter through last month’s heat dome.

In June, a heat dome submerged the Pacific Northwest, sending temperatures soaring in a region where air conditioning is relatively uncommon compared to the rest of the country. Now, new records from Oregon’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) office reveal that workers were particularly vulnerable to heat-related illnesses in that time period, with more than 100 reporting that they were toiling in triple-digit temperatures without fans, cooling measures, or additional breaks, HuffPost reports. Workers in restaurant kitchens said that fainting was common, air conditioners were frequently broken, and managers and owners were unmoved by their pleas to close for the heat wave. In fact, one restaurant reportedly locked its walk-in refrigerator to prevent employees from using it to cool off. One Red Robin diner noted in a complaint: “The only [extra] compensation they got was Gatorades.”

Related Post
The Counter
Share
Published by
The Counter

Recent Posts

Grist acquires The Counter and launches food and agriculture vertical

Grist, an award-winning, nonprofit media organization dedicated to highlighting climate solutions and uncovering environmental injustices,…

6 months ago

Is California giving its methane digesters too much credit?

Every year, California dairy farms emit hundreds of thousands of tons of the potent greenhouse…

2 years ago

Your car is killing coho salmon

Highway 7 runs north-south through western Washington, carving its way through a landscape sparsely dotted…

2 years ago

The pandemic has transformed America’s dining landscape into an oligopoly dominated by chains 

One of the greatest pleasures I had as a child growing up in the Chicago…

2 years ago

California is moving toward food assistance for all populations—including undocumented immigrants

Undocumented immigrants experience food insecurity at much higher rates than other populations, yet they are…

2 years ago

Babka, borscht … and pumpkin spice? Two writers talk about Jewish identity through contemporary cookbooks.

Writer Charlotte Druckman and editor Rebecca Flint Marx are both Jewish journalists living in New…

3 years ago