COSH is also advocating for mandatory training for workers on how to recognize the signs of heat-related illness before they become too severe. “This heat is not just uncomfortable, it’s dangerous,” said Keith Bullard, the deputy director of the Union of Southern Service Workers, at a September town hall. “Heat illnesses at work are 100 percent preventable, and what makes it preventable is not rocket science: It’s air conditioning, it’s water, it’s access to cooling breaks.”
The Ethics and Expense of Protecting Workers
Without a mandated standard in place, it’s up to individual restaurant owners to act ethically and protect employees from the heat. The ROC United report explicitly suggests “installing and maintaining HVAC/AC systems in kitchens, ensuring workers are hydrating and taking frequent breaks, and implementing proper ventilation systems around ovens, stovetops, and heat-producing restaurant equipment.”
Energy-efficient HVAC upgrades can have a major impact. “Getting rid of an old, inefficient machine is a no-brainer,” says Michael Oshman, CEO of the nonprofit Green Restaurant Association, which offers sustainability certification to restaurants that meet its environmental standards. “It can be hard to justify financially, but when it’s hot and the [electric] bills are getting higher, it makes more sense to make that investment.”
He also encourages restaurants to think creatively, both for their bottom line and the environment. He recommends painting the roof white, which reflects heat away from the building, or putting in a rooftop garden, an upgrade that can both add locally grown produce to the menu and help cool the air well beyond the restaurant itself.
But the costs of these upgrades can be prohibitive in an industry with famously thin margins. In July, Hope and Charles Mathews, the owners of Chleo, a small restaurant in Kingston, New York, closed for an entire week to install an HVAC upgrade to their building, which they own. Their building’s HVAC system piped “makeup air” directly from outside into the kitchen to alleviate the extreme heat of the restaurant’s wood-fired grills, which can burn up to 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit. But when the outside temperature is nearly 100 degrees, that approach offers little relief.
Initially, the couple intended to replace the system with one that would push cooled air into the building year-round, but that would’ve cost them more than $60,000, money they didn’t have to spend. They’ve settled, instead, for a pair of “splits,” a cheaper set of units that would pump cooled air only into the restaurant’s warmest spaces, still a major investment in equipment. Also an investment: increased utility bills that come with more air-conditioning.
“Utilities are very expensive. Honestly, I don’t even know what these new air-conditioning units are going to cost us, which is totally scary,” Hope says. “When your utility bills are already over $2,000 per month, you don’t want to go much higher than that.”
And sometimes, protecting workers from the heat means telling them not to show up at all. The Mathews’ HVAC upgrades happened only after they made a decision earlier in the summer to shutter their doors for a few days during a heat wave. “We’re a mom-and-pop operation, and we have to make decisions sometimes that aren’t necessarily in our best financial interest, but are in the best interest of the people that work with us,” Hope says.
Yukon Pizza’s pies are made with sourdough starter from 1897, passed down by owner Alex White’s great-great-grandfather, a miner during the Klondike Gold Rush. Photo courtesy of Yukon Pizza.
Yukon Pizza owner Alex White closed his Las Vegas restaurant for much the same reasons. During a July heat wave after its HVAC system gave out, the restaurant’s wood-fired pizza ovens were pumping heat into the space, and it was nearly 100 degrees indoors. “Our number one priority is the health and safety of our customers and our employees,” White says. “There’s no reason or need for any of them to be working in those temperatures.”
