Unions are calling for new work health and safety laws to better protect workers from climate change, including extreme heat, natural disasters and air pollution.
A delegation of union leaders and workers, including nurses, firefighters, and teachers, travelled to Canberra today to launch a new report Work Health and Safety in the Era of Climate Crisis laying out the extreme safety risks to workers and reforms needed in the face of rising temperatures.
Australia’s current work health and safety regime does not enforce mandatory thresholds for safe temperature or indoor and outdoor air quality, heat stress protocols, co-developed emergency plans, or any other binding climate adaptation measures.
The first National Climate Risk Assessment released in September confirms that Australia is likely to experience more frequent and extreme climate hazards.
Worsening natural disasters add to the strain on healthcare and emergency service workers, who are required to work longer hours in more hazardous conditions, risking exposure to contaminants from fires and floods.
“Our work health and safety regime needs urgent improvement to protect workers from the climate impacts we’re already witnessing, let alone what we’ll see in the 2030s and 2040s,” said Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) President Michele O’Neil.
