In mid-July, Greece was engulfed by another stifling heat wave. The heat was magnified in Athens, as the concrete and marble of the capital’s streets and sidewalks held onto the beating of the sun. Indoor spaces offered no or little air conditioning, and even the evening air brought little respite. Temperatures hovered around 38°C (100°F) for over a week. It is the kind of unrelenting heat that can make you feel faint even when standing still. It is the kind of heat that blisters thoughts and belabors your ability to breathe. Greece’s civil protection agency warned that citizens must be “particularly careful,” and suggested that people “stay in cool and shady places away from overcrowding.”
But for many workers, these directives are impossible. Even during the hottest part of the day on the hottest day this year, delivery workers flitted around the city on motorbikes, and some construction workers continued laboring. A union of delivery workers, SBEOD, released a statement noting how “long waits in the sun, running engines, hot sheet metal, hot asphalt and exhaust fumes send the temperature soaring.” They called for the Ministry of Labor to institute binding emergency work stoppages. The Federation of Technical Works Workers (OSETEE, a construction workers’ union) similarly noted how, given the lack of proper legislation, the government must take “political responsibility for any illness, injury or death of workers who remain unprotected under inhumane working conditions.”
Perched on the Mediterranean, Greece is not new to hot summers. But the summers are getting hotter — and staying hotter for longer. Heat waves come more frequently, hold higher temperatures, and drag on for over a week at a time. For many Greek…
La suite est à lire sur: jacobin.com
Auteur: Moira Lavelle
