Over 70 per cent of global labour force working in extreme heat |

Balint Nafradi: Heat is a well-known occupational safety and health risk factor. We know about it since the 1950s, but if you open an occupational safety and health textbook written back then, you would find that it is maybe dangerous for bakers or workers in metal foundries – that is specialized occupations. And what our report found is that the scope of the problem is much larger than that. About 2.4 billion workers, or 71 per cent of the global labour force, are exposed to extreme heat at work. And in the last 20 years the exposure share increased by almost nine per cent. We identified 22.8 million occupational injuries attributable to extreme heat, almost 19,000 deaths and over 26 million cases of kidney diseases which are a result of prolonged exposure to heat during work.

UN News: What are the new professions and what are the new threats that have appeared compared to those estimates that were 50 or 70 years ago?

The main realization is that this is really impacting the majority of the labour force.  It’s not only few specialized occupations where there are artificial heat sources. It is not only agriculture or construction, but indoor workers, especially if in not properly ventilated workplaces, – they are all exposed to heat. And then workers, because of they are at work, tend to be exposed for a longer period of time. They cannot avoid it.

I think that the main understanding or the main realization is that it’s really a global problem in the sense of both geography and the distribution of the labour force.

UN News: Your report covers all regions. Do you see difference in response to the dangers that there are based on the fact that in some regions heat factor is something that has been there for ages, but in other it might be something that is new, that is coming with this climate change?

Balint Nafradi: A big part of the exposure to heat on workers is coming from the sun. And obviously, in the regions or countries which are warmer the problem already existed before. That’s 70 per cent of the exposed labour force is a global average. In such regions such as Africa it’s over 90 per cent and in the Arab states it’s over 80 per cent. Of course, there are variations, because in Europe, especially in northern parts of Europe, it’s less than 30 per cent. So there is this geographical variation.

Regions which tend to be colder, like Europe, showed much faster than average increase in the past 10 years. So, in terms of response that makes two different difficulties.

For the regions where there is a big, sizable exposure already today, the difficulty is to mitigate this occupational safety and health hazard. For the regions where the exposure is relatively low but rapidly growing, the problem is to adapt to this newly changing working environment. It’s a difference if the temperature is 25, 35 or 45 degrees Celsius. This brings us to the topic of heat waves and the discussion of those. The share or the importance of heat waves increased fastest in the Americas. But still the report indicates that nine out of 10 workers who is exposed, they are exposed outside of heat waves. If you like, heat waves are the tip of the iceberg which gives the visibility to the problem, but the majority of workers are actually exposed in times where there is no official warning issued.

UN News: In this situation, are there any policies introduced currently? What is the reaction to that new and constantly growing challenge?

Balint Nafradi: There is guidance specific to heat exposure. The ILO produced the Code of Practice on the Working Environment, which has a chapter on how to protect workers against heat exposure. There are specific international labour standards. They have guidance on protecting certain groups of workers.

We found that most of the countries have some sort of labour law in place, but most of those are old and they are not designed with taking into account this huge share of the labour force which is exposed.

We also identified several cases all over the globe where the labour law was recently updated: for example, temperature limits are set depending on the activities. It’s usually not only the temperature that’s important, but other factors like humidity or air movements which are there in many of these recently updated legislations. In most places acclimatization or hydration, requirements for working intensity, or the adaptation of the working intensity to the temperature are in the law. Those are the positive signs that we found. But many of those laws are responding mostly to heat waves which I mentioned before. That’s only one out of 10 workers, so one out of 10 exposures. The other nine still need to be considered and workers need protection.

The important part is to have the labour laws updated, but in this updating process, social dialogue is really important. The active involvement of both workers and employers, because they are the fist to know what risks are out there and how to best respond to them. We put 21 countries in our report all over the world from Europe, also Japan and China, Mexico of South Africa – really a lot of countries. The local realities are different over there. Many of the updated laws have specific guidance for the work intensity. There are different rules that apply if it’s a heavy physical activity, or if it’s an office work, etcetera.

There is also advice to adapt the working arrangements to the temperature. It’s not necessarily shifting working hours because we also know that shift work or night work is on its own particularly dangerous. We don’t want to be in a situation that we replace one hazard with another. But there are a lot of practices which can be done: like making the heavy part, the physically heavy work in the hours that are not hot, and the other activities in the warmer periods. Also a practice which is highly recommended is to provide shade or areas where workers can avoid heat or can escape from heat. Providing water and hydration is a really important safety measure.

Education and awareness raising both for workers and the employers is important so that they know that heat is a hazard. And that’s, of course particularly important for the regions where it is fastly growing. We’ll assume that in Africa, everyone knows that heat is a problem. But in northern Europe, which is one of the fastest increasing parts, one needs to adopt the thinking that if a week of hot weather is coming that was great 20 years ago, nowadays it’s a week of 35 plus degrees Celsius. And that’s the heat which could be a hazard for work.

UN News: There is Olympics starting in Paris and athletes are workers, right? As well as those thousands of people who will be servicing the Olympics, making this big sports events a great success. Are there any recommendations you would share on how to stay fit without any bad consequences health wise due to the heat?

Balint Nafradi: I will maybe start with a fun fact: one of the first studies from the 1950s, which studied the heat effect on human performance was done by professional athletes. So, we know for a fact that athletes just because they are in good physical conditions, they are not immune to heat. So they have to take care.

As for the rest of us, the usual outdoor activities and the guidance that applies is to stay hydrated. Be in the shade as much as you can and don’t be in direct sun unless it’s absolutely necessary. Minimize those hours as much as you can. And the third recommendation would be to avoid heavy physical activities. But I guess, for the Olympics that’s not really a particularly useful advice. It is heat and if you see someone in the crowd or your coworkers, colleagues, whatever, feeling dizzy, take care and alert the helpline.