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This Labour Day, let’s take a closer look at a growing threat that is reshaping the meaning of workplace safety: Extreme heat. Climate change is driving longer, more intense heatwaves, and for those who work outdoors, this isn’t just discomfort, it’s a daily occupational hazard. What responsibility do employers and policymakers have to protect workers from occupational heat stress? On this episode of #ConsiderThis Melisa Idris speaks with Wong Yan Ke, Regional Campaign Officer (Climate & Forestry) for Building and Woodworkers International.
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00:00Music
00:10Hello and good evening. I'm Melissa Idris. Welcome to Consider This.
00:14This is the show where we want you to consider and then reconsider what you know of the news of
00:19the day.
00:19This Labor Day, let's take a closer look at a growing threat that is reshaping the meaning of workplace safety.
00:27Extreme heat.
00:28Now, climate change is driving longer, more intense heat waves.
00:33And for those who work outdoors, this isn't just discomfort.
00:36It is becoming a daily occupational hazard.
00:40So the question we're asking tonight is what responsibility do employers and policymakers have to protect workers from occupational heat
00:49stress?
00:49Well, joining me on the show tonight to help me think this through is Wong Yanke,
00:54who is the regional campaign officer in charge of climate and forestry for Building and Woodworkers International.
01:01Yanke, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining me today.
01:04When we talk about extreme heat and heat stress, occupational heat stress,
01:09can you maybe talk to us a little bit about which sectors and types of workers you think are most
01:15exposed to heat stress?
01:18I'm curious to know what you're hearing from them, how they experience heat stress in their workplace, what it looks
01:24like in reality.
01:26All right. Thanks, Melissa. Thanks, Melissa, for having me here.
01:29I mean, like, yes, first of all, I think, you know, to talk about heat stress is doesn't really discriminate
01:34to any kind of workers.
01:35Right. And but definitely for those who are sitting in the air conditioner room, maybe it's just a kind of
01:40like inconvenient.
01:41But for especially for, but even for the indoor workers, especially they're working in the, you know, factories who has,
01:48like, you know, heavy machinery that produce heat or radiates heat.
01:52And actually, you can also feel the heat stress, especially sometimes the temperature can even increase even higher than the
01:59outside temperature.
02:00But I would say those who take the blow of this is like the outdoor workers.
02:05So, so it depends, yeah, like construction workers, like agriculture workers, pre-hailing drivers, and even our traffic officer, you
02:15know, traffic police officer.
02:17They also impacted by the heat stress.
02:19So, but for construction workers, I usually use this kind of analogy.
02:23It's kind of like they are entering into a mega oven.
02:26So imagine if you are trying, you know, you park your car under the sun for more than two hours.
02:31When you open the door, you feel suffocating, you're suffocating from the heat, right?
02:38But for construction workers, it's kind of like you have L5, you have like concrete floor, you have the steel,
02:44scaffolding, all these kind of things.
02:46So they absorb the heat at the same time they, they, they, they, they radiates the heat.
02:51So this is kind of like they are baking the, the, the air surrounding.
02:55So yeah, the, the heat stress really impacted them a lot.
02:59And when you ask about like, how do they feel, I would say, uh, it, it really depends on the
03:04people because different people, they have different kind of body mechanism to cope with it.
03:09And I would say, uh, what I hear about is like, uh, people, uh, feeling like the, the, the heartbeat
03:15and, and the pulse are racing faster.
03:17And then, uh, I think it's kind of like our body mechanism, like try to fight for it.
03:22Our, our, our, our blood vessel dialect is just to, you know, disminate the heat out, right?
03:27But, um, at the same time, I think it's also, um, quite worrying because especially the thing, quite a dangerous
03:34symptom that I hear.
03:36It's like their loss of focus, concentration, and they feel dizziness, right?
03:40And this is very dangerous, especially those who are working using the heavy, uh, you know, uh, uh, machineries or
03:47even in the, you know, uh, um, like the crane tower, for example.
03:52Yeah.
03:53For me, it can be a, it can be a fatal accident.
03:56If someone, you know, fainted in somewhere, and then this is how a fatal accident can happen.
04:01Yanku, do you think that workers are empowered to report if they're feeling this way?
04:08If they consider, they, they see these occupational hazards that's impacting their jobs that they feel have, uh, created unsafe
04:15conditions in the workplace?
04:17Well, under the law, under our occupational safety and health law, it's, uh, it's a compulsory mandatory for the, the,
04:23the employers to, uh, form out this kind of, what we call the Joint Occupational Safety and Health Committee,
04:29especially the workplace that have more than 40, uh, workers, right?
04:33But I would say, and, and they, they, any workers can report to this Joint Committee, but I would say
04:38it comes to reality.
04:39It can be different because especially the power dynamic exists between the employers and individual workers, and especially for the
04:46migrant workers, right?
04:47Because imagine like you, you just go directly to your boss and say, look, boss, I couldn't work today.
04:52Yeah.
04:53It's very hot.
04:54What is kind of variation, right?
04:56I mean, like people are feel of gratulations and, and people feel being labeled as unproductive, lazy, and, and this
05:03is why some of them, they choose not to make the report.
05:06But, so that's why, uh, I would say the trade union is very important, but we are must seen as
05:11a, you know, social partner to the employers, to the governments,
05:14because we can come as a collective voices.
05:16We can do the, you know, the, you know, the complaints or reporting to, to the employers without, uh, collectively
05:22and also, uh, uh, doing collectively and also anonymously so that, um, we protect the workers, we act as a
05:29skill.
05:30Yeah.
05:30So, uh, how, how do you think employers respond to if there are workers who are, in fact, you know,
05:37brave enough to weather the risks, um, and, any kind of direct or indirect punishment
05:43to report what they consider unsafe conditions or occupational hazard conditions, uh, do you think employers generally recognize that heat
05:53stress, extreme heat, these are considered occupational hazards?
05:57I would say it also depends on which employer you are talking to, but I, I believe generally to say
06:04that I, I, I would say so, uh, if there's no governor by any law, right,
06:08like people won't recognize it directly as a, you know, uh, the issue or the harsh hazard that we need
06:14to handle immediately.
06:15So I, I would say, but I, I, I'm not playing the finger pointing game or, uh, uh, uh, uh,
06:20blaming game here because, like, uh, I, I believe we need to understand what are the issues here right now.
06:24The first is about awareness, right?
06:27Because some of the employers, they, they, they might not experience the heat directly.
06:30So they, uh, they, they, they doesn't know the, the medical implication in the long run until someone collapse, right?
06:36This is the first thing. Second, I would say it's about, um, uh, lack of enforcement because the law, under
06:42the law, there's no, any specific law that say heat stress is, uh, occupational hazard, right?
06:47So if there's not any law that explicitly say that stated that, I don't think that, uh, uh, it kind
06:53of like, uh, if you are not being, uh, you won't be penalized for that and you won't, you won't
06:57do it.
06:57But last but not only, I think it's the things that we need to address together is lack of incentive,
07:03right?
07:03Because for multinational company, for large company, they have a lot of capitals, they can invest in heat protection mechanisms
07:10or, or like the cooling tanks, cooling PPE, et cetera.
07:13But for micro and, uh, micro enterprise or even SMB, it's just not the case because they are, they are
07:20suffered.
07:20You have very tight, you know, margin, profit margin, et cetera.
07:23But for them, they don't see there's a need to invest in it unless, you know, there's some incentive.
07:29Right. So you mentioned that there's, unless it's governed by law, most employers might not take it as seriously.
07:36Well, um, are you saying that there is, are there current protections at the moment but just doesn't cover heat
07:42stress?
07:42How do we think about how to make this, um, fall under, uh, regulation or law?
07:49Or is this something that you think should be, um, not a blanket case but, uh, industry specific or more
07:56on the discretion of industry?
07:59Yeah, definitely because, uh, under the OSH law, uh, the employers have the general duty, you know, to, to promote,
08:05uh, the, the safety, uh, and also the, the, the health.
08:08But again, what I mentioned here right now, the extreme heat or heat stress wasn't being explicitly mentioned under the
08:14law.
08:14But we have, uh, the Department of Occupational Safety and Health, they did publish a guideline, 2016 guideline.
08:21Yeah, we are, we are quite, uh, uh, uh, out front.
08:24We will do it in 2016.
08:26But for me, it's just a guideline, right?
08:28It's not dining.
08:29Like, so, for example, like, uh, yeah, we always see, imagine if there's a signage to ask you to, you
08:35know, please drive safely.
08:36Will you drive safely?
08:37Unless you put a sign, this is kind of like, uh, you know, there's a, uh, speed limit here.
08:42Otherwise, you, you, you, there's IES here.
08:44Otherwise, you will, you will receive the fine, right?
08:46This is what I, what I mean here right now.
08:48Because if what I take right now, there's a no heat stress law, which means that if today we are,
08:53you know, the employers ask the workers to work in the midday at their, you know, uh, when we have
08:58reached, you know, uh, maybe level two or level three heat in the country, they won't be penalized.
09:05They won't be penalized.
09:06They won't be punished under the law because there's no law, right?
09:09So what we propose definitely, I mean, moving forward, uh, uh, first is definitely the government's, you, you need to
09:17recognize, uh, uh, heat stress or extreme heat as occupational safety hazard, health hazard right now.
09:23And, and let's treat it like, uh, COVID-19.
09:25COVID-19 is also quite new to us during that time.
09:28But when we treat it as a occupational safety, uh, hazard, immediately we have the entire OSH mechanism respond to
09:36it.
09:36We produce the guideline, we implement it, right?
09:39And then, uh, we also sense the urgency of having this, right?
09:43And, and then we need to stop for heat stress.
09:45We need to stop work when it's too hot and the workers have the autonomy to do so.
09:49But don't get me wrong here because I'm, I'm not asking, you know, uh, there's no any, definitely we know
09:54there's implications, the economic implications around.
09:57So, uh, that's why there are two things we, we are demanding the government to do.
10:01So you need to have a more robust, uh, uh, social protections for the workers.
10:05That means compensations for, for the workers when the work stop, uh, work stoppage.
10:10But at the same time, you need to protect the employers as well, especially like the constructions, uh, uh, workers
10:14because that's right.
10:15By the construction, uh, uh, contractors, because every time of the second of delay, they might get a penalty for,
10:22for delaying the projects.
10:23Am I right?
10:24So take example in like South Korea, they have the, what we so call the heat delay clauses in the
10:30OSH law.
10:30So you won't be penalized if you want to protect the workers, I mean, when you stop the work during
10:35the extreme heat.
10:36So this is kind of like, we can also lay kind of like protection for them.
10:39And last but not least, again, I will emphasize a lot what the government can do more is like to,
10:45to create more incentive.
10:46You can implement the tax break, you can implement, uh, uh, uh, uh, the so-called what we, um, the,
10:52the, the zero interest loan for the micro enterprise and SMB to take it out.
10:58To understand that, yes, when we implement this kind of heat protection mechanism, we do the workplace adaptions for the
11:03workers for heat.
11:05Uh, we, uh, we, we receive something, yeah.
11:08So I think this is the way to go.
11:10Yeah.
11:10Yeah.
11:10Yankar, I really like that you, um, made that, gave that example of how workplaces changed to adjust to COVID
11:19-19 regulations or guidelines, right?
11:21Um, that, that's so interesting.
11:23Have you, in your proposal or in your recommendations for, um, employers and for policymakers to address occupational heat stress,
11:31what's been the feedback?
11:32I'm curious to know, is this something that, um, that industry and government is open to, uh, listening to and
11:40responding to?
11:41Are we taking this seriously enough?
11:43Well, uh, I, I, I, I've also been to, uh, the, uh, the DH interview with, uh, uh, the Ba
11:49Sing, and I saw some of the response is quite good, whereby they are looking forward to, to protect because
11:54they understand that investment in heat protection is actually, you can have a higher return of investment, right?
12:00Like, if you are not, you, you make the, the workers more productive, right?
12:04This is the very obvious thing.
12:06And then there's a study there you can, uh, uh, reduce the hospitalizations, you increase the productivity, et cetera.
12:12So I won't go up into it, but, uh, I also like to share my experience, you know, working with
12:17the, uh, the government.
12:19So we approached the, the Dan Minister's, uh, Wabini Nasmi, and, uh, he, he, he come in an open heart
12:25and he said, we, this is a thing that we need to look into it.
12:28And we need to work with the KSUMA or the Ministry of Human Resource, uh, uh, to work out some,
12:33some of the heat action plan and include something related to this.
12:37And then he said, sometimes we also need to look into, because the, we haven't tabled the Climate Change Bill
12:42yet.
12:42And this is something that we can look into, but unfortunately, because he has resigned.
12:46So I think this is a time for us, you know, to pick up, uh, the engagement again with the
12:51new minister, uh, uh, YB, Arthur Joseph, yeah, on this.
12:56Yeah, definitely.
12:57Yankar, thank you so much for joining me on the show, sharing some of those insights and those, uh, recommendations,
13:02highlighting what I think is going to be quite a pressing matter for workplaces moving forward.
13:08Thank you for your time.
13:09Wong Yankar from the Building and Woodworkers International.
13:13We're going to take a quick break here on Consider This.
13:16We'll be back with more on this topic, so make sure you stay tuned.
13:24Bye.
13:29Bye.
13:30Bye.
13:30Bye.
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