More than 1.5 million workers in North Carolina risk their health and their lives working in jobs that expose them to high heat with little to no protections in place. The people responsible for governing our state should find this unacceptable. This state runs on the labor of workers, yet the deceptively named Heat Workforce Standards Act of 2025, H.R. 6213 puts the health and the lives of workers at risk.

In 2023 alone, there were at least 2,325 heat-related deaths in the United States, and this is likely an undercount. That is why in 2021 Toxic Free NC and other organizations worked together to form the North Carolina Heat Stress Coalition. Our goal is to ensure that North Carolina adopts a heat stress standard to protect workers from heat-related illness (HRI) and death. We know North Carolina workers deserve better.

In recognition of the growing problem of workplace heat exposure, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued the Heat Injury and Illness Prevention in Outdoor and Indoor Work Settings proposed rule in 2024. The proposed rule was the product of several years of thoughtful work by OSHA in consultation with scientists and other experts.

But legislation now pending in Congress, H.R. 6213, could undo all of this progress to protect working people. This legislation forbids the Secretary of Labor from finalizing, implementing, or enforcing the heat injury and illness prevention standard proposed by OSHA, along with any “substantially similar” rule.

Join us in speaking up for workers in our state! Send a message to Congress today saying workers in North Carolina deserve water, shade, and rest during extreme heat. Reject H.R.6213