Workers can't take heat? Kitchen may have to be cooled.

JUST months after sweeping regulations were instituted to limit the effect of scorching outdoor temperatures on farm and construction workers, a host of other California employers are bracing for possible regulations on indoor heat.

Late last month, representatives of manufacturers, warehouse operators, commercial laundries and kitchens faced off with labor advocates, attorneys and community activists over the prospect of stringent regulations to control the impact of high temperatures in workplaces.

"We are definitely not excited about the prospect of indoor heat regulations," said Jason Schmelzer, lobbyist with the California Manufacturers and Technology Association. "There is such a variation of circumstances and conditions for indoor employers that such an onerous regulation that treats everyone the same simply won't work. It will be a huge burden."

Employers have fought off previous attempts at establishing heat regulations on indoor workplaces over the last 20 years, but this time, things may be different. That's because when emergency outdoor heat regulations were established in late 2005 after a series of heat-related deaths of farm workers in the Central Valley, the Schwarzenegger administration pledged to revisit the issue of indoor heat regulation.

What's more, during this summer's record-shattering heat wave, at least two workers perished while working indoors, lending even more momentum for regulation. But while some regulation may be inevitable, what shape it will take is far from certain.

"It would be safe to say there was not much consensus on how to proceed, with management and labor on opposite sides of this issue," said Len Walsh, acting chief of the California Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which hosted the workshop as it mulls the indoor heat standard.

Worker advocates say they want a sweeping regulation that requires all indoor workplaces to have adequate ventilation and a series of required measures--such as work slowdowns and more frequent breaks--when indoor temperatures cross a certain threshold.

"There are workers who are equally at risk of death indoors as outdoors from excessive heat," said Fran Schreiberg, executive director of WorkSafe, a coalition of labor, community activists and occupational health and safety professionals.

Schreiberg said that in warehouses in some of the state's hotter inland valleys, indoor temperatures can exceed outdoor temperatures. She added that many facilities lack air conditioning or ventilation.

Schmelzer conceded that some facilities may need regulation, with a focus on training. But he said a "one-size-fits-all" approach would place tremendous burdens on employers.

"Take a steel mill, where there can be five or even 10 different microclimates inside the facility," he said. "If you require monitoring of the entire facility, the employer would have to go around to each microclimate, not just where the problem is most severe."

Also, he said, requiring potable water to be at the worksite may not be appropriate for high tech "clean rooms" where contamination of sensitive electronic components might take place. Cal-OSHA's Walsh said another stakeholders meeting will take place early next year and that the agency should have a proposed regulation on the table by the middle of 2007.