MADRID — The death of a street cleaner during a heat wave in Madrid is driving a debate in Spain about the need to adapt labor rules to the realities of climate change.
Most importantly, officials and unions are trying to ease the heat inequalities faced by lower-earning workers and families.
When street cleaner José Antonio González started his afternoon shift in Madrid, the temperature was 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit). Three hours later, the 60-year-old collapsed with heat stroke and died.
In Spain, activists are pressing for work hour changes during heat waves, while in Britain, unions want the government to set maximum heat standards for indoor workers.
“It’s obvious that social inequalities play a part” in how much people suffer during heat waves, says Júlio Díaz of Spain’s Carlos III Health Institute.
“Enduring a heat wave in an air-conditioned house with a swimming pool is not the same as five people in the same room with a window as the only source of fresh air,” he told Spanish public broadcaster RTVE.
The recent torrid weather in Europe, which has seen a spike in the number and size of wildfires, is forcing the issue to the forefront.
And as Britain prepared for this week’s heat wave, which saw temperatures hit a national record of 40.3 degrees Celsius (104.5 Fahrenheit) on Tuesday, labor unions urged the government to impose maximum workplace temperatures for the first time. Many homes, small businesses and even public buildings in Britain do not have air-conditioning.
In Madrid, González’s 21-year-old son, Miguel Ángel, says his father, days before he died, had searched on the internet for “how to deal with heat stroke.” The evening before he died, he had arrived home from his cleaning shift gasping for air.
Scientists say the worsening of pre-existing illnesses, not heat strokes themselves, are the main cause of deaths linked to the high temperatures.
The Carlos III Health Institute estimates that 150 deaths in Spain were somehow linked to the heat wave on the day that González died. The following day, the institute attributed 169 deaths to the heat, bringing a total of 679 cases during just the first week of the heat wave.
Ramming home the danger, another Madrid street sweeper was hospitalized with heat stroke on Tuesday.
