By Paul Tacon, Katherine Velastegui, and Halshka Graczyk, International Labour Office (ILO), Switzerland

Extreme heat in the workplace is a particularly potent consideration in the context of climate-related human mobility. Globally, more than 70 per cent of the workforce is exposed to excessive heat in the workplace, leading to at least 22.85 million work-related injuries and 18,970 deaths per year.[1]

Extreme heat is not experienced equally. For example, migrant workers are often over-represented in physically demanding outdoor jobs in sectors like construction and agriculture. This may cause them to suffer from debilitating injuries and diseases due to prolonged exposure to extreme heat and other climate-related hazards, such as UV radiation or air pollution.[2]

These effects are not inevitable, however. Workplaces can be adapted through collaborative efforts to make the right to a safe and healthy workplace a reality even as the climate changes.

Addressing occupational safety and health (OSH) challenges must, therefore be at the heart of climate adaptation as a critical mechanism for reducing vulnerability and ensuring dignity in work. Proactive OSH interventions, such as heat action plans for workplaces, regular heat-stress risk assessments, and the provision of adequate hydration, cooling facilities, and rest breaks, can save lives and enhance productivity, even under rising temperatures.

Such measures should be based on workplace social dialogue between employers’ and workers’ organizations to mitigate risks and save lives. However, migrant workers often face workplace discrimination, including limitations on their fundamental right to freedom of association and collective bargaining. As a result, they often cannot participate in workplace OSH processes, exacerbating the risks they face.

To adapt to extreme heat in the workplace, rights-based and inclusive processes, engaging non-traditional adaptation actors such as employers’ associations and trade unions are needed.

Realising fundamental rights at work, including rights to a safe and healthy working environment and the right to freedom of association and collective bargaining for all, should be at the heart of all climate change adaptation and labour policies. National reforms should set out clear criteria for addressing extreme heat, including giving workers the right to remove themselves from work in situations of dangerous heat.

At the workplace level, social dialogue should include migrant workers.

National adaptation planning should integrate human mobility and should include ministries of labour and representatives of employers’ and workers’ organizations to capture workplace adaptation issues. As discussions towards a global goal of adaptation advance, climate-related workplace injury data disaggregated by migrant status should be considered as a potential indicator of adaptation.

Robust, inclusive and portable social protection mechanisms are also crucial to adaptive capacity. As the Global Goal for Adaptation and its indicators are developed, the upcoming adaptation architecture would benefit from integrating SDG indicator 1.3.1 (percentage of the population covered by social protection floors/systems), disaggregated as much as possible by migration status, to identify gaps and promote appropriate solutions.

Adaptation for migrant workers requires safe, healthy workplaces protected against extreme heat and ensuring decent work. Fostering decent work and ensuring OSH-centred approaches to climate resilience directly address one of the most immediate and life-threatening impacts of extreme heat on vulnerable populations.

[1] ILO (2024). Heat at Work: Implications for Safety and Health. ILO_OSH_Heatstress-R16.pdf

[2] ILO (2024). Ensuring safety and health at work in a changing climate. https://www.ilo.org/publications/ensuring-safety-and-health-work-changing-climate

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this piece are those of the author/s and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of AIDMI.