He said the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees Division, which represents track maintenance workers, is sending emails this week to railroads operating in the East to seek protections, including air quality monitoring and rescheduling work. Tony Cardwell, president of the country's third-largest railroad union, said he has clashed with rail companies over protections for workers in California even after new wildfire rules were place. That’s going to affect them for a long periods of time.”Įven when rules are in place, labor activists say getting companies to comply is another matter. “You can see people having heart attacks on days when air pollution is bad. “One thing that seems really clear from our research is that the effects of smoke on labor earnings or labor market incomes will extend past the days in which the smoke is bad,” said Mark Borgschulte, one of the study’s authors and an assistant professor in economics at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. A study last year found that every day of exposure to drifting wildfire smoke can reduce workers’ quarterly earnings by 0.1% - a toll that comes to $125 billion a year in lost income. There are potential long- and short-term financial ramifications for workers. There is little official guidance in the East related to wildfires and there are no such specific standards at the federal level, though employers must protect workers from wildfire smoke under general laws requiring safe work sites. Gavin Newsom passed a bill in 2021 allowing farmworkers access to the state’s stockpile of N95 masks. In recent years labor agencies in California, Oregon and Washington have adopted rules requiring employers to provide protection from wildfire smoke, including N95 respirators, breaks and sometimes moving operations indoors. Wildfire smoke photos in NYC show ‘apocalyptic' sepia landscape Grubhub alerted drivers that they would not be penalized if they didn’t feel safe completing deliveries and reminded those with pre-existing conditions to stay inside, a company spokesperson said. “We are taking all these risks and still what we are making is barely enough to survive so we can’t afford to miss work for even one day,” said Jhale, who spoke in Hindi through a translator from the Justice for App Workers organization. By evening Jhale, father of a 5-year-old boy, had recovered somewhat and tried again. Some companies provided N-95 masks and allowed employees to take breaks indoors but labor rights groups pushed for more protections, replaying a yearslong struggle that began in California and other Western states a long time ago.įood delivery workers on bicycles and scooters crisscrossed the streets of New York City even though a “Code Red” alert remained in place Thursday.Īnything over 300 is considered hazardous.īimal Jhale, 43, tried to set out on his scooter to make deliveries for Grubhub on Wednesday afternoon but was already dizzy after working as cook in a diner that morning. Most elementary and middle schools were scheduled to be off for a clerical day, however. New York City Public Schools announced Thursday that classes on Friday will witch to remote instruction. Sign up for NBC LA newsletters.Ī laggardly weather system has settled over the region and the smoky blanket billowing from wildfires in Quebec and Nova Scotia continued Thursday, and may persist into the weekend. Get Southern California news, weather forecasts and entertainment stories to your inbox.
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