City and county governments in Florida will not be able to mandate heat protection rules for outside workers due to a bill signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) on Monday.
In addition to barring local governments from setting a minimum wage higher than state or federal, House Bill 433 prevents municipalities from setting their own heat protection standards. A statewide standard for heat protection does not exist in Florida, but the bill relies on guidelines from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. However, state and local government workers are not covered by federal OSHA.
Two million people in Florida are believed to work in construction and agriculture, including the husband of the bill’s sponsor, state Republican Rep. Tiffany Esposito.
“This is very much a people-centric bill,” Esposito told USA Today. “If we want to talk about Floridians thriving, they do that by having good job opportunities. And if you want to talk about health and wellness, and you want to talk about how we can make sure that all Floridians are healthy, you do that by making sure that they have a good job. And in order to provide good jobs, we need to not put businesses out of business.”
The bill’s passage comes as leaders in Miami-Dade County were looking to implement 10-minute breaks in the shade every two hours for outside construction and farm workers on especially hot days. It was a move that DeSantis and others believed could have had a disastrous impact on jobs.
“There was a lot of concern out of one county, Miami-Dade, and I don’t think it was an issue in any other part of the state,” DeSantis said during the press conference. “I think they were pursuing something that was going to cause a lot of problems down there.”
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This summer, Florida is expected to experience more days with extreme heat (temperatures of at least 95 degrees) compared to the averages over the last 30 years. From 2010 to 2020, the University of Florida recorded 215 heat-related deaths in the state. Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recorded that the average annual heat-related deaths have risen 95% from 2010 to 2022.
Florida is now the second state, after Texas, to ban local heat protections.