EDM backs calls for 30°C maximum

UK: Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn has tabled a Parliamentary Early Day Motion (EDM) calling for a maximum acceptable temperature in the workplace.

Backed by 36 fellow politicians, mostly Labour and SNP, the EDM has repeated TUC demands for a maximum working temperature of 30ºC, or 27ºC for those doing strenuous work, beyond which employers would have a statutory duty to introduce effective control measures.

The EDM regrets that workers in the UK have no guaranteed legal safeguards from working in uncomfortably high temperatures, owing to the lack of a statutory maximum temperature at which employers would have to introduce control measures, such as breaks, access to water or air conditioning.

It also points out that excessive heat in the workplace is responsible for heat stress and thermal discomfort, and can impact seriously on health, well-being and productivity.

Tabled during the Wimbledon tennis fortnight, when the Women’s Tennis Association introduced regular heat breaks for competitors when temperature exceeded 30ºC, it questions why similar measures were not also in place for male competitors or why, outside the world of highly-paid tennis stars, high temperatures were not seen as a matter of concern for workers in a wide range of workplaces including offices, schools, shops, bakeries, vehicles, trains, call-centres, theatres and construction sites.

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