Name: Postal Workers Are Dying In Heat Waves. It’s Only Going To Get Hotter.
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Postal Workers Are Dying In Heat Waves. It’s Only Going To Get Hotter.

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×U.S. EditionPart of HuffPost Business. ©2022 BuzzFeed, Inc. All rights reserved.×Illustration: Hokyoung Kim for HuffPostAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe Los Angeles Daily News, which covered Frank’s death closely, reported that from the same post office was hospitalized for heat illness a year ago, on a day when the temperature hit 100.AdvertisementBELOW: The number of extremely hot days each summer will increase significantly due to global warming.AdvertisementAdvertisementBELOW: Letter carriers will face far more unsafe working days due to extreme heat as global warming worsens. A sampling of major cities:AdvertisementThe steep drop in first-class mail due to the internet hasn’t helped ― nor has the coronavirus pandemic. When the economic slowdown hit, the agency said it expected to . The damage , however, thanks to a boom in package delivery as homebound Americans shop more online.The agency has not released details on its next batch of vehicles, but it is soliciting proposals now and hopes to award contracts by the end of this year. Even so, many carriers don’t expect air conditioning in the new trucks. The job requires constantly opening and closing windows and doors, a waste of cool air that the Postal Service may view as too costly.Advertisement“It’s not feasible to drive around with air conditioning running and the windows open delivering mail,” said a rural postmaster in the Southeast, who asked not to be named because he wasn’t authorized to speak to the press.AdvertisementAdvertisement“This is costing the company money we don’t have and I know this,” he wrote. (The Postal Service is not a company but an independent agency of the federal government.) His superiors told him “heat does not matter.”The Postal Service developed a heat abatement program as part of a settlement with the letter carriers union after Watzlawick’s death, agreeing to acclimatize employees who have missed work. But it hoped to limit its obligations under the plan, according to documents obtained through a public records request.AdvertisementAdvertisementThe Postal Service did when it settled the Watzlawick case. New employees would be trained in recognizing signs of heat stress. Each carrier would have a mobile “panic button” to alert the post office in an emergency. Carriers on walking routes would be given 64-ounce water containers. And, most critically, supervisors would implement a “work-rest” regimen on excessively hot days that guaranteed breaks for workers and designated air-conditioned or shaded areas on each route.But the agreement came with a major loophole: It technically applied only to Watzlawick’s post office, in Independence. Even though the Postal Service recognized heat abatement as “essential” everywhere, the various steps laid out in the plan couldn’t be legally enforced elsewhere.After workers in Pensacola, Florida, in 2015, supervisors there argued that they weren’t required to have a heat abatement program in place, according to the . A local union official filed a complaint with OSHA, prompting investigators to take the temperature inside trucks. OSHA issued a $70,000 fine for hazards. The Postal Service settled it at $7,500.AdvertisementOSHA has cited the Postal Service for heat hazards at least 20 times since the Watzlawick case. A month after Peggy Frank died in 2018, a new carrier in Jacksonville, Florida, suffered acute kidney failure while training in high heat, according to documents. The Postal Service was fined $129,000 but is still contesting the penalty. The most recent heat citation came for an incident last September, in Phoenix. OSHA does not release documents for cases that are being appealed.BELOW: Letter carriers will face far more dangerously hot working days between May and September due to global warming.The Postal Service was not fined in the July 2017 death of a West Virginia letter carrier, but an investigation still revealed heat hazards. Ronnie Bowles collapsed on a customer’s porch and died on a day the heat index hit 85 degrees. An autopsy revealed he had an enlarged heart with blockages, but OSHA determined that the heat may have “contributed to his cardiovascular collapse” because he was unacclimatized. He had just returned to work after missing 24 days due to medical leave and vacation. He had fallen nearly an hour behind on his route when a resident found him.AdvertisementIt would be unfortunate if it takes more deaths and larger fines to convince the Postal Service to do the right thing.”AdvertisementAdvertisementSuggest a correctionPAID FOR BY MARRIOTT BONVOY BOUNDLESS CREDIT CARD

×U.S. EditionPart of HuffPost Business. ©2022 BuzzFeed, Inc. All rights reserved.×Illustration: Hokyoung Kim for HuffPostAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe Los Angeles Daily News, which covered Frank’s death closely, reported that from the same post office was hospitalized for heat illness a year ago, on a day when the temperature hit 100.AdvertisementBELOW: The number of extremely hot days each summer will increase significantly due to global warming.AdvertisementAdvertisementBELOW: Letter carriers will face far more unsafe working days due to extreme heat as global...

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Dave Jamieson

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At HuffPost, we put people first. We believe that real life is news, and news is personal.

Postal Workers Are Dying In Heat Waves. It’s Only Going To Get Hotter.

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