alt Hacker NewsEurope's Largest Unions Demand Right to Cancel Work on Days Above 30C
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>The union said employers should take steps to cool down workplaces once temperatures exceed 24C, with workers able to stop working if temperatures reach 30C, or 27C for those doing manual labour or working outdoors.
Geneva already has a version of this. You have to stop outside work at 13h00 unless it's necessary, in which case you have to take 45min breaks for every 15 minutes of work. However the threshold isn't 27C but rather like 32C (from what I understand)
(Slightly) better article: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jul/08/unions-e...
OP's submission seems very UK / TUC centric, also doesn't include something many here are bringing up, that they indeed plan to base it on the wet bulb temperature.
While they're at it, include schools too. Many school buildings have inadequate ventilation or climate control.
Sweating in >30°C high-CO2 spaces doesn't improve student's learning.
I wish that society can learn about and apply the concept of a wet bulb temperature.
A dry bulb temperature of 30C contains little information regarding safety. Humans are wet and we cool ourselves with evaporation.
99.9% of all mass in the solar system is the Sun, a giant nuclear reactor. No one should ever accept energy conservation.
US Military developed the wet bulb index in the 1950s for this purpose and it’s still used today.
That's not going to work in the South. Demand adapted buildings, housing, and AC where applicable.
With or without AC?
We should implement this in Florida. I wouldn't mind a five month vacation.
Anything above 86 F? That's the whole summer. I see this as a negotiating position. They'll probably agree on something closer to 33 C (~90F). They have to. If they do nothing people will literally die. Climate change has consequences.
Vapor compression refrigeration has been mass produced for a century. Add a reversing valve and you have a heat pump. Europe better get started on installs, it’s not going to cool down.
30C isn't that bad if the humidity is low and you are in shade.
> Under the proposals, employers within the European Union would be legally required to suspend work if temperatures exceeded 30C
That's... uh... the entire summer in most of southern Europe?
I agree with the general intention, but the thresholds probably need to take into account humidity as well (i.e. be based on wet bulb temperatures), and I don't really see how one can apply a one-size-fits-all policy all the way from Greece to Scandinavia...
Turns out in the 21st century the technology that will boost worker productivity in Europe will not be AI, it will be AC.
Oh, noes! Europoors become even less competitive! If only they had not outlawed airco, they would be rich, rich I say!
But, ehhhhhm, yeah... What would you expect unions to do? Push their workers just a bit harder so they get through summer-no-matter-what? Free ice, and not just in their drinks, for everyone all around? Or just recognize that siesta was invented for, like, a reason and go with the deeply-historical flow?
Personally, I think "if you cannot provide a working environment where the ambient temperature is well below 30C (86 in Freedom Units), maybe the work should be postponed, at no cost to the worker" is not an unreasonable collective-bargaining position, but let the downvoting commence...
(P.S. Funny anecdote: in communist China [hiss, boo!] in the run-up to the 2008 Olympics, there was an official directive for working conditions in hot environments, which set thermal time limits, and completely outlawed work [hiss, boo!] when temperatures were above 32C [around 90 in Freedom Units] for the day. The officially published temperature in the newspaper was, without fail, 31C, even if Beijing was cooking, though the largest pollutants would be shut down, especially when the IOC was visiting... [Fox News would be proud!])
I find this funny. Temps are always above 30C here during summer.
I think this whole heat wave crisis has been shocking to the rest of the world to see that apparently Europeans refuse to install AC even in new-build homes and it is causing enormous numbers of deaths. What is the reason for this? Is it just because it's expensive and energy costs are so high?
It seems like a basic safety requirement that they are refusing to acknowledge and are now apparently just refusing to go to work completely when it gets hot outside.