The death of the cleaner in the full heat in Barcelona shocked the labor force of this municipal service and forced the city council to consider the protocols for high temperatures. The consistory met on Wednesday with four subcontracting companies (Urbaser, Scyr, Sorigué and FCC, to which the dead woman belonged) and with her representatives of the trade union, and agreed to strengthen some measures to mitigate the consequences of high temperatures.
Liaya Bonet, Deputy Mayor of Urbanismo, explained that the protocols of four contractors were different. The greatest change is that measures that were used from 37 degrees – when the orange notification was activated – will now be accepted from 34 – yellow. This includes a resolution of five shots every hour, in addition to those that are already installed for breakfast and snacks, and distribute an isothermal bottle of liter.
“We included the best practices of each protocol in one,” Bonet said that he insists that these documents are considered every year and that “good work” was performed in prevention.
In addition to the most frequent pauses and a bottle of water, Boonet set other examples of how the change in the protocol for workers will affect: from 34 degrees the operators route will be changed so that during the hours of greater insolation they go as a shadow. Another novelty, although it will be, if 40 degrees are exceeded – red notification is that serving on foot without a vehicle will be suspended in the central hours of the day.
Barcelona reached its record temperature these days in the month of June: 37 degrees during the day. It was in these very hot conditions that the employee began to find bad last Saturday during the service in the city center and died a few hours later, when he returned home. To your case, we must also add two employees who, on Tuesday, were supposed to be sent to medical centers in the middle of the working day from the heat of heat.
