Projects
Our research projects are conducted through the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), Australia, and auspiced by C-SERC.
High heat and Climate Change at Work
Climate change is driving higher temperatures, heatwaves, and more extreme weather. There are one billion workers exposed to high heat, which kills more workers than any other natural disaster. It is crucial we act. To help solve this problem, we need to know more about what is happening in diverse roles and industries, and to hear from workers themselves.
In 2020 and 2021 we worked with the United Workers Union and surveyed and interviewed over 800 of their members. These people work as educators, machine operators, warehouse workers, home carers, cleaners, firefighters, paramedics, and more. They told us about their experience of climate change and high heat, the impact of bushfires, and the complications of COVID-19 for heat stress.
We found that heat in the workplace is not just about daily temperature forecasts and cooling controls. The ability of workers to delay the most physically demanding tasks to cooler times of the day, take extra breaks, pace themselves, and stop work, also determined how high heat can be managed. Our report made recommendations that there be urgent national planning across the workforce, and that employers be made to do more to keep people safe on the job.
Project team
Elizabeth Humphrys and Freya Newman
Heat in The Streets
This project investigated the experience of high heat and heat stress by two groups of outdoor workers in the City of Sydney area: bicycle courier riders (food and document delivery), and municipal park maintenance workers. The study was conducted between January and September 2019, and funded through a City of Sydney Council Innovation Grant. The project examined how these workers were affected by and managed high heat at work.
The team developed an interactive online platform to report data involving the workers, exploring the feasibility for a reporting app that could be used in citizen science and labour organising projects. The project team also made a submission to the Inquiry into the Victorian On-Demand Workforce.
Project team
James Goodman, Elizabeth Humphrys, Freya Newman, Francesca da Rimini, Nimish Biloria and Leena Thomas
Union approaches to high heat and climate change
This project explores how trade unions in Australia are approaching high heat and heat stress as an occupational health and safety, industrial, and organising issue. We interviewed union officials representing a range of workers including: delivery riders, firefighters, farmworkers, warehouse workers, builders, electricians, council workers, emergency service workers, logistics workers, hospitality workers and early childhood educators. Out of these interviews, we developed analytical tools to assist in elaborating commonalities and divergences in union approaches to high heat. The tools frame what sorts of actions are taken by unions, and illuminate what barriers and possibilities there are in relation to organising in an era of climate change.
Project team
Elizabeth Humphrys and Freya Newman
Strike While It’s Hot: Heat Stress in Construction Work
Outdoor workers in the NSW building and construction industry are particularly vulnerable to heat stress. Most obviously, this is partly due to the weather exposed and physically strenuous nature of much of their work. But there are other factors at play — the industrial environment, different working arrangements and job security, levels of union organisation, and how much control workers have over their working conditions — all of which have implications for the management of heat stress. This project formed the basis for an Honours thesis in 2018 which won the UTS University Medal, and considered: how heat stress is being experienced by workers in the NSW building and construction industry; how these workers are taking action on the issue; and, how OHS issues such as heat stress lead to worker mobilisation.
Project team
Freya Newman