FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Antonette Kamara, antonette.kamara@berlinrosen.com
HEAL Food Alliance Applauds Senator Padilla’s Bill to Protect Workers from Extreme Heat
July 17, 2025 – With a dangerous heat wave recently scorching much of the country, U.S. Senator Alex Padilla and Representative Judy Chu introduced federal standards to protect working people from the deadly effects of extreme heat stress. In response, Nichelle Harriott, Policy Director of the HEAL (Health, Environment, Agriculture, Labor) Food Alliance, shared the following statement:
“The HEAL Food Alliance applauds Senator Padilla and Rep. Chu for introducing the Asunción Valdivia Heat Illness and Fatality Prevention Act of 2025. This much-needed legislation is a critical step toward protecting millions of working people, including those who come to this country seeking safety and opportunity and who grow, harvest, cook, and deliver our food, often in dangerous heat without basic protections like water, shade, or rest breaks.
For too long, corporate lobbyists and complicit politicians have put profits over people’s lives. Extreme heat is now one of the deadliest weather-related threats in the U.S., and yet we still have no federal safeguards to protect working people. That’s not a lack of resources, it’s a lack of political will. This bill is a commonsense solution that affirms a simple truth: no one should have to risk their life just to put food on the table. When working people are protected, entire communities thrive.
Named in honor of Asunción Valdivia, who tragically died in 2004 after picking grapes for 10 hours in 105-degree California heat without sufficient rest or water, this bill addresses the deadly conditions farmworkers and other laborers continue to face. Too often, employers deny farmworkers like Asunción basic protections, like adequate breaks, access to drinking water and shade to shelter from the dangerous heat while at work.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1,042 workers died from occupational exposure to extreme temperatures from 1992 to 2022, and heat-related fatalities rose by 18.6% in just one year, from 2021 to 2022. This legislation would establish a permanent federal standard to protect working people from excessive heat in both indoor and outdoor workplaces. It sets out common-sense safeguards, including paid rest breaks in shaded or climate-controlled areas, access to potable water, mandatory heat illness prevention training for workers and employers, and emergency response protocols for heat-related illness. As climate change fuels more frequent and intense heat waves, these protections are not just overdue – they are lifesaving.
The HEAL Food Alliance urges Congress to provide working people with safe, dignified working conditions. We also hope to see protections for food and farmworkers included in the next Farm Bill to ensure greater safety and quality of life for all people working in our food and farm systems.
About HEAL:
The HEAL (Health, Environment, Agriculture, Labor) Food Alliance is a national multi-sector, multi-racial coalition. HEAL is led by its member-organizations, who represent about two million rural and urban farmers, ranchers, fishers, farm and food chain working people, Indigenous groups, scientists, public health advocates, policy experts, and community organizers united in their commitment to transform our food and farm systems.