Chicago’s summer ended with another year full of headlines about record-breaking temperatures. This has become our new reality, with each year hotter than the previous. But for Chicago’s outdoor workers, extreme heat isn’t a weather forecast; it’s a workplace condition.
When temperatures exceed 90 degrees, construction workers can’t decide that it’s simply too hot to complete their job. Workers repairing our street infrastructure can’t turn off the heat radiating from the pavement, and delivery drivers can’t decide that they won’t deliver Chicagoans’ online purchases. Chicago relies on its outdoor workers to keep moving. Yet they continue to face increasingly hot summers without protections to keep them safe from heat-related illness, making them among the most vulnerable workers to a changing climate.
This year, Cook County reported the highest number of heat-related deaths recorded this decade, and more than double the number of deaths from the previous decade. Heat is the deadliest natural disaster event — a silent killer that claims more lives each year than hurricanes, tornadoes and floods combined. Outdoor workers are especially vulnerable to heat-related illness, with estimates attributing as many as 2,000 worker deaths to extreme heat and 170,000 injuries to heat stress in the U.S. each year.
That is why in 2023 we introduced the Heat Illness Prevention in Outdoor Places of Employment Ordinance, which would create a framework for preventing heat-related illnesses in outdoor workplaces as heat waves and extreme temperatures become more frequent in Chicago. Its requirements are common sense: Provide workers with water, a place to cool down when they experience heat-stress symptoms and the tools and education to recognize the signs and symptoms of heat-related illness.
Although the ordinance passed the Committee on Workforce Development in September 2025, one of us, Chairwoman Maria Hadden, delayed a final vote in the City Council, as more business stakeholders had questions and additional conversations were still needed to make sure we had legislation that works. Before the City Council now is an ordinance that strikes that balance of addressing industry-specific realities while enhancing outdoor worker protections for a warming climate.
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While we’ve been fighting to advance worker protections, House Republicans in Washington are determined to roll them back. In mid-July, the House Committee on Education and Workforce advanced H.R. 6213, the Heat Workforce Standards Act. If adopted, this would block the Occupational Safety and Health Administration from adopting the federal heat protection standards proposed in 2024 under Joe Biden’s administration. Furthermore, similar efforts to advance heat protections in Springfield have stalled, with a heat protection bill getting sent back to the Illinois House Committee on Rules, leaving its future uncertain.
In the absence of protections from Washington or Springfield, Chicago must lead in this new frontier of labor protections. No one should have to risk their life for simply going to work, and Chicago can’t wait any longer for others to do the right thing. Chicago has an opportunity to set a nationwide example for protecting its workforce from a new generation of worksite hazards driven by rising temperatures. The decisions the City Council makes as a legislative body will affect similar negotiations for heat protections for workers across the nation, and this ordinance was drafted every step of the way with that in mind.
The City Council has the opportunity to continue our city’s legacy as a trailblazer for workers’ rights and serve as a model for the rest of the nation by passing the Heat Illness Prevention in Outdoor Places of Employment Ordinance.
Ald. Maria Hadden represents the 49th Ward and is chair of the Committee on Environmental Protection and Energy. Ald. Mike Rodriguez represents the 22nd Ward and is chair of the Committee on Workforce Development. Greg Kelley is president of the Service Employees International Union Illinois State Council.
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