The people most exposed to extreme heat, hurricanes, and wildfires on the job are also among the most effective advocates for the protections that could save lives. The National Council on Occupational Safety and Health (COSH) is building their capacity to be heard.

Freddy P. was sent to hot rooftop construction sites in Florida with no safety training. Trina D. works on the airport ramp in Phoenix, where surface temperatures can exceed 150°F. Jannie K. testified before an administrative law judge and U.S. Department of Labor officials about working in extreme heat at a Mississippi catfish plant without adequate breaks, water, or cooling, and called for a federal workplace heat protection standard. These workers aren’t just witnesses to the extreme weather crisis. They are among its most knowledgeable analysts, and in many cases its most effective advocates.

National COSH’s Workers Fired Up! project will train low-wage worker leaders as storytellers and media communicators, connecting them with press opportunities, social media platforms, and coauthoring opportunities for op-eds and short videos. The goal is to get workers’ experiences and solutions into local and national media outlets — with 30 percent of placements in Spanish-language media — and to grow COSH Nacional’s digital reach by 50 percent. A bilingual extreme weather communications toolkit will allow COSH affiliates to replicate and localize the effort in their own regions.

The project is grounded in evidence. In places where workers have secured basic heat protections like water, shade, and rest, research documents substantial reductions in worker deaths, heat-related injuries, workers’ compensation claims, and emergency room visits. The workers National COSH supports know this, and many have spent years organizing for exactly these protections. This project gives them the communications infrastructure to make that case more loudly and more broadly.

CO2 Foundation recognizes that frontline workers are among the clearest-eyed observers of how extreme weather intersects with labor conditions, policy failures, and questions of justice, and their voices belong at the center of the public conversation about solutions.