By Caitlin Dewey, Stateline.org
Millions of American workers have breathed in dangerous levels of air pollution this year as smoke from Canada’s record wildfire season blankets cities across the Northeast.
Now experts are calling on federal regulators to adopt standards protecting outdoor workers from worsening air quality, potentially modeled after the few states that have such standards, including California and Oregon.
Rules could require employers to monitor air pollution and provide protective equipment such as N95 masks on days when air quality levels fall below certain thresholds. But regulations are not common in much of the country, where wildfire smoke and the health damage it wreaks are both relatively new concerns. And even supporters of regulations say states with rules have had some difficulty with implementation.
Cities across the Northeast and Midwest broke longtime records for air pollution last month, prompting a wide range of employer reactions. In Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, the U.S. Postal Service pulled some mail carriers from their routes as conditions worsened. In Minneapolis, construction workers finished out their shifts even after reporting fatigue and asthma symptoms.
In New York City, William Medina — a delivery worker for Uber and several other apps — donned his own mask and drove his moped through a thick gray haze that made it difficult to breathe. The state labor department had encouraged employers to limit or suspend outdoor work, but compliance was voluntary.
“They alert us when there are storms,” Medina said, of the apps he works for. “But there was no notification about the air quality and no preparations for it.”
Such incidents will grow more common in a changing climate, labor and workplace safety advocates say. Wildfires are growing larger, and wildfire smoke increasingly clouds a wider swath of U.S. states.
Last year, a report by the National Academy of Sciences concluded that “too many workers…
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