Workforce Bulletin

By Alka N. Ramchandani & Michael D. Thompson

In recent years, Cal-OSHA has taken an aggressive stance against exposing employees to potential heat illness, often citing employers and proposing significant penalties for failing to provide to employees who work in high heat conditions with adequate drinking water, shade, training, and/or cool-down periods. Furthermore, as noted by the California Supreme Court in Brinker v. Superior Court, monetary remedies for the denial of meal and rest breaks “engendered a wave of wage and hour class action litigation” when added to the ...

By Amanda R. Strainis-Walker and Eric J. Conn

With the dog days of summer around the corner, OSHA just put out a press release reminding employers with outside workplaces about OSHA’s focus on the hazards of working in high heat.  The press release reinvigorates OSHA’s heat-related illness campaign that began leading into last summer, when OSHA produced a great deal of public information about heat-related illness, including a dedicated heat illness information page on OSHA’s website, a YouTube video, public press statements, speeches by senior Department of Labor and OSHA ...