Growing climate change extremes across Colorado drive the need for state laws protecting vulnerable essential workers with mandatory shade, clean water, winter warmups and other basics, a broad coalition argued on the Capitol steps Wednesday.
The group led by Latino service and environmental organizations promoted a do-over for a bill that died last year that would require employers to make extreme weather protection plans. They said every year Colorado sees higher summer temperatures, bigger storms and choking wildfire smoke is a blow to frontline, in-person workers, many of them Latino or other people of color afraid of retaliation for questioning conditions.
“We are here because too many workers in this state are still expected to endure conditions that put their health, their bodies and sometimes their lives at risk. This is not abstract,” said Alex Sanchez, CEO of the Western Slope nonprofit umbrella group Voces Unidas. “This is not hypothetical, and this is not only about one industry or one region or one season.”
“We have seen workers die on the job,” said Rep. Elizabeth Velasco, D-Glenwood Springs, who first led a chant of “Respect our work!” Velasco worked in hotel food service. “We experience it every day. We are the ones most affected.”
House Bill 1272, cosponsored by Democrats Velasco, Rep. Meg Froelich of Englewood, Sen. Lisa Cutter of Littleton and Sen. Mike Weissman of Aurora, would first require the state health department to start gathering reports of temperature-related workplace injuries or illnesses, and then write guidelines for employers on how to prevent them. In the third year of the legislation, employers would begin submitting “temperature-related injury and illness prevention plans” to the state.
The coalition supporting the bill includes unions, environmental organizations working on climate change, worker and family support groups like 9to5 Colorado, and immigrant rights groups. Speakers emphasized the bill is not just about one obvious temperature-exposed industry such as roofing, but also snow removal, hotel and kitchen work without adequate air conditioning, farm field work and retail jobs.
The statewide annual average temperature has risen 2.3 degrees Fahrenheit since 1980, according to a 2024 study by the Colorado State University Climate Center. More human-caused warming is expected in coming decades, CSU concluded. Seven of the top 10 hottest average years since 1971 have occurred since 2010.
“Clean drinking water, shade or a cooling place, warming up from the cold. Rest breaks. My God. How are we in a place where this bill isn’t an automatic ‘yes’?” said Ean Tafoya, GreenLatinos’ vice president of state programs.
An extreme temperatures bill died out last year, in part from employer pushback resisting new requirements and implementation they considered too fast. This year’s backers say they have simplified the bill, extended compliance and offered employers more flexibility on how they would meet the mitigation standards. Supporters believe they will encounter less resistance.
They are also working to lower state costs for implementing the proposal. The bill currently carries a fiscal note predicting more than $5 million in state spending starting in fiscal year 2027-28.
“We expect to minimize that,” Velasco said.
She added, however, that constituents keep coming back to the issue, and “they want us to do something, now.”
Sanchez said Latino voters on many political issues are far more diverse than sometimes portrayed in politics, but that worker exposure worries unite them. “We are not a monolith, but on this we all agree,” Sanchez said. “This should not be a political issue.”
The bill has a hearing at the House Health and Human Services Committee on March 18.