Boston City Council Passes Heat Safety Ordinance for City Workers & Contractors
September 18, 2025
On August 27th, 2025, Boston City Council unanimously passed Docket #0135, An Ordinance to Protect Workers from Heat-Related Illness and Injuries in the City of Boston. Since an initial hearing on heat and worker protections in June 2024, Councilor Benjamin Weber’s office and other co-sponsors have been working with the City’s Office of Worker Empowerment, Office of Climate Resilience, and Office of Emergency Management, to draft and revise ordinance language that would protect city workers and contractors from the impacts of extreme heat. With initial ordinance language filed in January 2025, the intent was to finalize and pass the ordinance in summer 2025, with sufficient time for worker heat safety planning and implementation by summer 2026. The ordinance was written to go into effect 6 months after the day of passage, which will be February 27, 2026, giving relevant employers and contractors several months to design and implement heat illness prevention plans for summer 2026.
Some high-level takeaways from Boston’s heat safety ordinance for workers include:
- As of now, the heat safety ordinance only applies to city employees, contractors, and workers associated with city leases/sub-contracts. It is intended to encourage private employers to protect their workers in extreme heat as well but they are not yet mandated to do so.
- The threshold for protections is lower than emergency declaration protocol thresholds. The worker safety ordinance threshold kicks in at periods of extreme heat qualified as 80 degrees F or higher.
- Although some may say that this encourages misalignment with Boston’s heat emergency declaration protocols (with Boston’s heat advisories being declared at forecasted events of 90 degrees F heat index or above for 3 consecutive days, and heat emergencies at 95 degrees F heat index or above for 2 consecutive days), some healthcare experts warn that many heat illnesses and deaths occur at much lower temperatures than during official declarations for extreme heat. Additionally, due to Wicked Hot Boston and B-COOL research showing discrepancies between the National Weather Service’s heat sensor located near Logan Airport (which is the sole sensor impacting emergency declaration protocols), and hotspot neighborhoods, the lower threshold for worker protections is in part attempting to compensate for this discrepancy.
- Worker protections during extreme heat include guaranteed access to shade, water, and rest, as well as proactive mandatory heat safety training. The Ordinance allows the opportunity for tailored heat illness prevention plans by sector/worker type (ex. construction, transportation, outdoor recreation, etc.). The Ordinance also introduces the concept of “acclimatization practices” for workers newly assigned or reassigned to be working in a hot environment.
- Failure to comply could result in fines to contractors of $100/day, with cancellation, termination, or suspension of contracts to be expected if fines are not paid in full.
At the federal level, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) opened a heat injury and illness prevention in outdoor and indoor work settings rulemaking in June 2024, with public hearings throughout summer 2025. A formal public comment period for the federal rulemaking is currently open until October 30, 2025, and you can learn more here.
To read more about Boston’s heat safety ordinance for workers, please see a relevant Bay State Banner article here. For any questions or for more information on A Better City’s extreme heat work, please contact Isabella Gambill.
