Unions in Europe press for new worker protections to counter heat stress

A Deadly Heat Stress Epidemic Unfolds in Europe

As Europe's sweltering summer continues, trades unions are mounting a push for new laws to counter deadly heat stress that is linked to an estimated 230 workplace deaths a year. This year's toll may be even higher, with 1,300 excess European deaths already connected to the June heatwave by the World Health Organization, and other estimates running as high as 20,000. Unions want enforceable workplace thermal limits, based on the wet bulb globe temperature (WBGT) – which measures the human body's ability to cool itself – along with mandatory job site heat risk assessments. They are also calling for rights to heat breaks, outdoor shade, water, cooling, and adjusted working hours to be included in a forthcoming quality jobs law, in a draft directive text seen by the Guardian.

Enrico Somaglia, the general secretary of the European Federation of Food, Agriculture and Tourism Trade Unions (Effat), said: 'Climate change is no longer a distant environmental challenge, it is a daily occupational health and safety risk, as well as a threat to job stability. The current European legal framework is clearly not sufficient to defend against it.'

While the draft text is not a legal document, it is being taken up by sympathetic MEPs and officials as the torrid summer of 2026 forces the issue up the political agenda. The plan proposes maximum workplace WBGTs on a scale between 30C and 32.5C for work varying from very high to low intensity. Beyond these temperatures, work would be suspended. Any employers bucking the rules would face 'effective, proportionate and dissuasive' sanctions.

Effat is one of three union groups representing 15 million workers backing the proposed heat safety law, along with the European Federation of Public Service Unions and the European Federation of Building and Woodworkers, amid a groundswell of union support. In the UK, where on Wednesday an amber heat alert was issued for the south-west of England, with temperatures expected to soar in a new heatwave, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) is calling on ministers to introduce a maximum working temperature, a demand recently backed by the government's advisers on the Climate Change Committee.

The TUC wants rules to ensure employers take steps to reduce workplace temperatures if they get above 24C and the right for workers to stop work if they reach 30C, or 27C for those doing strenuous jobs. Paul Nowak, the TUC general secretary, said the rapidly changing climate brought significant workplace risks that needed to be mitigated. 'Indoor workplaces should be kept at comfortable temperatures, with relaxed dress codes and flexible working to make use of the coolest hours of the day. And employers must make sure outdoor workers are protected with regular breaks, lots of fluids, plenty of sunscreen and the right protective clothing,' he said.

A Heat Strike movement formed after the UK's hottest day in 2022 has stepped up its activism, calling a national action that 1,500 people participated in during the heatwave at the end of June. Activists, supported by groups including the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union, the Fire Brigades Union, Greenpeace, War on Want and Extinction Rebellion, set up cool stations to hand out water and health advice in town centres from Exeter to York. Some supporters held symbolic lunchtime walkouts in solidarity with those in extreme heat.

Global heating is rapidly intensifying and Europe warming twice as fast as the global average. Up to 130 million workers are now exposed to workplace heat stress, with 277,000 injured by it each year, according to research by the European Trade Union Institute. Maria Ohisalo, a Finnish Green MEP and the rapporteur for a parliamentary report on extreme temperatures at work, is supporting the union push. She said: 'Right now there is no European-wide regulation on protection against workplace heat (or cold) exposure, just a patchwork of mere recommendations. But workers everywhere need the protection that only legally binding and harmonised rules can offer.'

While new heat stress rules could be included in the Quality Jobs Act that the European Commission has pledged to bring forward this year, it will first have to overcome opposition from several labour ministers in rightwing EU states, who favour weaker recommendations. The commission did not respond to a request for comment.