{"id":7275,"date":"2022-07-28T09:10:34","date_gmt":"2022-07-28T13:10:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tempestmag.org\/v01_2020\/staging\/?p=7275"},"modified":"2022-08-03T02:33:58","modified_gmt":"2022-08-03T06:33:58","slug":"dropping-like-flies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/2022\/07\/dropping-like-flies\/","title":{"rendered":"Dropping like flies"},"content":{"rendered":"

W<\/span>hen Esteban Chavez collapsed after making his last package delivery for the day in Pasadena, California on June 25, it was another twenty minutes before someone discovered him and called for emergency help. He died soon afterward. Esteban was 24 years old and had been working at United Parcel Service (UPS) for four years. It was his second day back to work after recovering from a shoulder injury.<\/p>\n

Esteban went to work that day not expecting to die on the job. Temperatures, however, soared into the upper nineties in Pasadena, and UPS package delivery cars do not have air conditioning. “It hurts, it’s a pain that’s never gonna go away. And that’s something I wish on nobody, having the experience of losing your child,” his father Esteban, Sr. told<\/a> the local ABC news affiliate. While the Los Angeles Medical Examiner-Coroner\u2019s office hasn\u2019t released an official cause of death, Esteban\u2019s family believes with good reason that it is directly related to high temperatures and dehydration. “I’m thinking it’s heatstroke, but that’s just me,” Esteban’s aunt, Gloria Chavez, told ABC. Esteban\u2019s father hopes that his son\u2019s death “could bring awareness to his line of work, to the other drivers out there, just making sure you’re staying hydrated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Less than two weeks later in Scottsdale, Arizona the security camera of a homeowner captured a UPS driver collapsing on his front porch in 113-degree heat. Business Insider<\/em> reported<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The homeowner, Brian Enriquez, captured the incident on video via his Ring doorbell on Thursday. He told local news<\/a> that by the time he saw the video of the delivery man it was too late to provide any help, but he checked in with the company and reported the incident to local police for a welfare check.<\/p>\n

The video shows the UPS driver struggling to walk to the customer’s front door while delivering an envelope. The driver then collapses in front of the door after he sets down the delivery, eventually falling onto his back. After a few moments, the delivery man stands up, rings the doorbell, and slowly walks back to his vehicle.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There has been a longstanding awareness about the dangers of heat in the workplace whether it be in vast agricultural fields, underfunded public schools, construction and road work, warehouses and factories, and for package delivery drivers. Climate change has accelerated the dangers for these workers.<\/p>\n

When a local ABC News affiliate was able to track down the driver who collapsed on the Scottsdale porch\u2014he was interviewed anonymously\u2014and he told reporters:<\/p>\n

(The) fact of the matter is that no amount of training can prepare your body for 160 degrees, 10 to 12 hours a day, six days a week,” says one UPS driver who spoke with ABC15 anonymously, saying the way they’re treated is inhumane.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s not just him. The driver described<\/a> apocalyptic conditions, “Every week drivers are dropping like flies due to heat conditions and UPS is killing drivers because of this.\u201d<\/p>\n

His problems don\u2019t stop at the end of the long workday:<\/p>\n

There’s been several times where I\u2019ve woken up in the middle of the night, cramping up, my legs cramping, my hand is cramping. I\u2019m telling my wife I can’t sleep because I’m having these issues and I end up having to call out the next day because it’s clearly not safe for me to come back to work. And UPS will reprimand me.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

UPS drivers and Teamsters\u2019 spouses took to social media to highlight the lack of air conditioning, which most people found shocking. UPS driver Aiden Mann\u2019s Tik-Tok post<\/a> has garnered over five million views, while Theresa Klenk\u2019s change.org<\/a> petition demanding air conditioning for all UPS drivers has been signed by over 1.3 million people. Klenk and her UPS driver husband were featured<\/a> in an NBC News expose of UPS three years ago about the risk for heat-related illness and death on the job.<\/p>\n