Holds: employees will be able to request new protection measures from their employer

Sweat drops will peel the building workers in the front and other employees exposed to high temperatures. A heat wave falls on France for three days: the highest temperatures are scheduled for this Wednesday, June 11, with, for example, 34 degrees in Bordeaux and Toulouse or 29 degrees in Nantes and Lyon.

Given the multiplication of hot episodes, the government has signed a decree that provides new measures to protect employees. But they will not apply until July 1. The fact is that employers are obviously free to configure them this week, to protect their employees (who can also try to claim them in advance).

New protection measures for employees

Since the summer, during the intense heat episodes (which correspond to the achievement of yellow, orange or red surveillance levels set by Meteo France), employers attended subject to a certain number of obligations, as detail by the public service site.

• Work schedules

This includes measures to “adapt the schedules, suspend painful tasks during the hottest hours, better adjust rest periods.”

• Persian, misty …

Employers will also have to reduce solar radiation on the exposed surfaces or ensure that heat increases less in the facilities (solar visor, fans, mists …).

• Protection equipment

The work team will have to maintain a stable body temperature. Similarly, companies will have to die of personal protective equipment to limit or compensate for the effects of high temperatures or protect themselves from the sun (caps, glasses, …).

• Drink and fresh water

The decree also provides the increase, as far as possible, of the provision of fresh drinking water workers. The employer must provide employees with a sufficient fresh drinking water (3 liters per person and per day in the absence of running water) and maintain this cold water near the work stations.

• Proper risk training

The employer will have to take measures to inform and train workers, on the one hand to driving, to stay in case of high heat and, on the other hand, about the correct use of the equipment to reduce its exposure to heat to a level “as low as technically possible”.

Expected controls

The labor inspection can carry out checks in companies to verify that employees are safe. Last summer, he had carried out almost 1,500 controls in different sectors of activities exposed to heat (construction, agriculture, industry, catering, etc.).