Death heats

I doubt that any of my readers have ever heard of 49-year-old Richard Quishpe. I never heard of him, either, until last Friday morning, when I received an email from the Jewish Labor Committee.

Then again, why should any of us have heard of him? He was not a politician or some famous entertainer with thousands of fans on social media. He never appeared on late night TV. He did not discover a cure for some dreaded disease. He does not even have a Wikipedia page, and, to my chagrin, I could not find any mention of him on any other Wikipedia page.

He was, in fact, just some anonymous outdoor worker we so often encounter on our streets or mowing someone’s lawn, a person to whom we pay little or no attention. In Richard Quishpe’s case, he worked for the Newark-based Concrete and Masonry Builders. The only way we would have come into contact with him is if we hired Concrete and Masonry Builders to pour some concrete for us, and he was part of the crew sent to do the work, so there would seem to be no reason for any of us to have ever heard of Richard Quishpe.

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But we should have heard of him, and some Wikipedia articles should have mentioned him. That is because just about one year ago, at around 2 p.m. on July 8, 2024, Richard Quishpe was pouring concrete for the foundation of a new home in Madison when he collapsed from the excessive heat. He died in a nearby hospital soon thereafter.

The heat was indeed excessive on July 8 last year. When temperatures exceed 80 degrees Fahrenheit, performing outdoor work of any kind is already considered hazardous. A report by the New York State Insurance Fund, for example, showed that workplace injury claims increase by 45 percent statewide on days when temperatures exceed 80 degrees. According to AccuWeather, the temperature in Madison that afternoon was 93 degrees Fahrenheit, and the heat index had hit 102 degrees by then.

The actual picture is much worse, however, because asphalt and concrete surfaces absorb and re-radiate heat, making densely built urban and suburban areas significantly hotter than rural ones. According to local officials, when the outside temperature in Madison reaches 95 degrees, the concrete temperature rises to 140 degrees, and the asphalt temperature is 155 degrees.

The excessive heat on July 8, 2024, was no surprise, as the National Weather Service had issued a heat advisory for that day for all northern New Jersey, Madison included, warning that temperatures that day would range between 95 and 100 degrees Fahrenheit and could reach into the low 100s in some areas. Consequently, the borough of Madison prepared to open several cooling centers that day.

Richard Quishpe should not have died. OSHA, the Occupational Health and Safety Administration, certainly does not think so. It cited Concrete and Masonry Builders for failing to take proper precautions to protect its workers on such a blisteringly hot day.

The precautions the company should have taken, even without being prompted, are the ones announced by the Biden administration on July 2, just six days before Richard Quishpe’s death. The proposed rules were published in the Federal Register on August 30 but have yet to be finalized nearly a year later. More likely, though, the rule changes will fade away instead because the Trump administration reportedly is planning to scrap them. It is also reportedly planning to severely cut OSHA’s inspection staff. Those precautions include requiring construction companies to provide their employees with water, rest, and shade when working outside in extreme heat.

One reason those precautions were proposed is this statistic from the Bureau of Labor Statistics: Between 2011 and 2021, 436 workers died from environmental heat exposure.

If the federal rule is scrapped, that is acceptable for people who live in California, Oregon, Washington State, Nevada, or Minnesota, or who are farm workers in Colorado, because those states already have such rules in place. Some of those rules are better than others, but at least those rules are on the books.

It is not okay, however, for those of us who live in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, or Pennsylvania, among so many other locales. We do not have such rules, although in May, Pennsylvania’s governor formed a heat safety taskforce to develop heat safety guidelines by the end of the year. There also are bills pending in the New Jersey and New York state legislatures (N.J. Bills A3521/S2422 and A5022/S3884 and N.Y. Assembly Bill A365), but these bills have been around for a couple of years and keep getting stuck in committees.

Outdoor laborers who work in Texas are particularly disadvantaged because not only are there no such rules on the state level, but in June 2023, the Texas legislature revoked the right of municipalities to adopt local rules, deeming such rules to be “anti-business.” By doing so, the Texas legislature eliminated safety rules that already existed in some of its cities. Dallas, for example, required construction companies to give their workers 10-minute breaks every four hours.

Think about that. The Texas legislature deemed it “anti-business” to mandate that construction companies provide their workers with just 10 minutes of rest every four hours, allowing them to take a break in the shade and drink water. Instead, it passed a law that is anti-people, and it did that although nearly 10 percent of workers who died of heat exposure nationwide between 2011 and 2021 died in Texas.

Here in New Jersey, Richard Quishpe’s death was not an isolated incident. In 2022, for example, two employees reportedly died at Amazon facilities here during a summer heat wave.

Anyone who works outdoors or in poorly ventilated warehouses is at risk.

Oppressive heat can also lead to various non-fatal but nevertheless serious injuries, including heat cramps, heat stress, heat exhaustion, and heat stroke. There were at least four such heat-related injury cases involving United Parcel Service workers here in New Jersey between 2020 and 2024.

One UPS driver, Herry Cortez, is quoted on the watchdog website New Jersey Monitor about what he and his colleagues face while sitting inside a metal cab on extremely hot days. He compared it to working during the summer months in states such as Texas and Arizona, which are notoriously brutally hot.

“We need strong laws and strong union contracts to hold employers accountable,” he is quoted as saying to the New Jersey Monitor. “Because left to their own devices, these companies are going to push workers beyond what’s safe.”

Richard Quishpe’s death would seem to be proof of that.

I so often note, as I did in my column two weeks ago, that halachah, Jewish law, is very insistent about what our role must be when we hear of matters such as this one. “Do not stand idly by your neighbor’s blood,” the Torah tells us in Leviticus 19:16, which means that we cannot sit “idly by” in our air-conditioned homes or offices and tsk-tsk about this situation but otherwise do nothing positive to rectify it. We must be proactive in looking out for the welfare of everyone in our community — Jews and non-Jews. (See Mishnah Gittin 5:8 and the follow-up discussion in the Babylonian Talmud tractate Gittin 61a.)

Those of us who live here in the Garden State have a better chance of helping to keep workers safe than in the rest of the U.S., at least until November 3, 2026, when control of Congress is up for grabs again, and so are the legislatures in New York, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut. We have a better chance here because control of the New Jersey Legislature will be in our hands this year on November 4.

Our state legislators have been avoiding the issue for too many years now. They draft bills, hold hearings, and then go into summer recess year after year, including this year, without acting on the necessary legislation.

That has to stop, and we who live here in New Jersey have to work together to make it stop. We have to let our local representatives know that we are mad as hell and we are not going to take it anymore, to paraphrase the fictional network anchorman Howard Beale. We can do that by going to form.jotform.com/251876705537063 and signing a letter prepared jointly by the Jewish Labor Committee and the advocacy group Make the Road New Jersey, which will be sent to the Legislature.

We can also encourage others to sign that letter, and we can attend campaign events and make our views known to the candidates running for legislative seats.

Consider also donating to Make the Road New Jersey, which is involved in various social justice issues. To do this, go to www.maketheroadaction.org/new_jersey.

Last year was a record year for heat, and this year is already on track to be even hotter. We now have the opportunity to save the lives of some of those who work in the heat. The Torah takes its laws of pikuach nefesh (safeguarding life) very seriously. It demands that we do whatever it takes to protect life. The Torah demands that of us; it is not a suggestion.

“Do not stand idly by your neighbor’s blood.”

Shammai Engelmayer is a rabbi-emeritus of Congregation Beth Israel of the Palisades and an adult education teacher in Bergen County. He is the author of eight books and the winner of 10 awards for his commentaries. His website is www.shammai.org.