Our summers are getting hotter and longer each year, and the climate crisis is making jobs – especially those outdoors – more deadly. Yet, Texas elected officials refuse to act in order to keep us safe. Workers routinely labor in grueling summer heat without access to water or rest reeks. Heat strokes and exhaustion are commonplace – with Latine workers three times more likely to suffer heat-related job fatalities than non-Latine workers, and making up a third of worker heat deaths from 2010 to 2021.
For years, heat safety has been a critical component of our organization’s work. We are working to ensure workers are protected from extreme heat by demanding action from all levels of government through policy changes and regulatory changes.
Other extreme weather occurrences for which Texas has been grossly unprepared include winter freezes, hurricanes/storms, and flooding. Countless lives have been lost that could have been prevented with adequate emergency measures in place.
Texas is the only U.S. state that does not share its grid with the rest of the country. This isolation has yielded unreliable and expensive electricity for Texans, representing a massive failure of state government with tragic consequences for poor people, immigrants, and communities of color. The power failures during winter storm Uri in 2021 led to hundreds of deaths, countless injuries, and extensive property damage. After a 2024 storm hit Harris County in late May, over 800,000 homes were left without power for days, and a second storm that hit Dallas left over 200,000 homes without power for weeks. Most recently, Hurricane Beryl devastated Harris County leaving over a million people without electricity for days.
We have been organizing to both respond to the crisis as it is happening and hitting our members and community and to demand action from local and state government officials to properly respond and provide people what they need in the times of need regardless of their immigration status.Through the Power Up Harris County Coalition we have been leading the efforts to secure federal dollars from the Inflation Reduction Act to build climate resilient infrastructure that prioritizes those most impacted and we are working on a local grid for Harris county and resiliency for Dallas county all through a worker justice lens. Ensuring that everyday people see the impact of those federal dollars in their everyday lives.