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Season 5, Episode 212

New MOSH heat safety standards for Maryland workers

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Guest Name:


Debbie Berkowitz

Guest Website:


Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor at Georgetown University 

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Debbie Berkowitz, Practitioner Fellow at the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor at Georgetown University, joined the America’s Work Force Union Podcast to discuss the new Maryland Occupational Safety and Health (MOSH) - Division of Labor and Industry standard for heat safety protections for workers.

Berkowitz has been advocating for workers' safety for over 40 years. She spent 20 years with the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union and the AFL-CIO, helping improve workplace safety standards. Berkowitz then served as the Senior Policy Advisor and Chief of Staff for OSHA during the Obama Administration.

Recently, Maryland passed a requirement that OSHA in Maryland issue a statewide standard for worker heat safety protections. Berkowitz also provided the background information behind the past efforts to establish heat protections for workers. The new standards come after a sanitation worker passed away earlier this year due to working in a high temperature environment.

According to Berkowitz the new heat protections are common sense, with a higher focus on recognizing the signs of heat stress. She explained that companies will be required to provide outdoor workers with shaded areas and water for breaks. Many cases where outdoor workers die due to high temperatures occur on or close to the worker’s first day on the job, Berkowitz said. The standards will also require an acclimation period for new outdoor workers so they can get used to working in higher temperatures. 

For more from Berkowitz and heat protections for workers, listen to the show above.


America’s Work Force is the only daily labor podcast in the US and has been on the air since 1993, supplying listeners with useful, relevant input into their daily lives through fact-finding features, in-depth interviews, informative news segments and practical consumer reports. America’s Work Force is committed to providing an accessible venue in which America's workers and their families can hear discussion on important, relevant topics such as employment, healthcare, legislative action, labor-management relations, corporate practices, finances, local and national politics, consumer reports and labor issues.

America’s Work Force Union Podcast is brought to you in part by our sponsors: AFL-CIO, American Federation of Government Employees, American Federation of Musicians Local 4, Alliance for American Manufacturing, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes-IBT, Boyd Watterson, Columbus/Central Ohio Building and Construction Trades Council, Communication Workers of America, Mechanical Insulators Labor Management Cooperative Trust, International Association of Heat and Frost Insulators and Allied Workers Local 50, International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Crafts, International Union of Painters and Allied Trades District Council 6, Ironworkers Great Lakes District Council, Melwood, The Labor Citizen newspaper, Laborers International Union of North America, The National Labor Office of Blue Cross and Blue Shield, North Coast Area Labor Federation, Ohio Federation of Teachers, United Labor Agency, United Steelworkers.

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