Walters: California businesses, lawmakers turn up heat in battle over workplace temperatures

In political jargon, “heat” means pressure on politicians to do something they may be reluctant, for whatever reason, to do.

But heat itself — high temperatures, sometimes in triple digits, that afflict inland California each summer — is a political issue with life-and-death consequences.

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Assembly Bill 1336, now awaiting Gov. Gavin Newsom’s signature or veto, is the latest skirmish in a decades-long conflict over protecting workers from heat effects on their health, whether they work outdoors or inside.

The measure, if approved, would create a new legal presumption — that workers suffering from heat illness or injury would be entitled to workers’ compensation benefits if their employers failed to comply with standards set up to protect employees from heat effects.

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