HEAThens Against HEAT

A worker-led project documenting Texas occupational heat deaths

Texas won’t count its workers killed by heat — so we do.

Every case in this archive was found the hard way — dug out of OSHA records and news reports — because no state system counts heat deaths properly. They get coded as cardiac arrest or “natural causes.”

We count them. We tell their stories. And we push for a state where the counting becomes the state’s job.

Watch the memorial films Share your story Browse the archive

cases archived and counting

Verified against OSHA records & named media reporting

01Memorial films

Each film tells one worker’s story — who they were, what the heat did, and who is still counting. Every film closes with the series signature: the mission, and a call for viewers to share their own close calls or the stories of loved ones lost the same way.

New films premiere on Instagram @heathensagainstheat and are collected here.

03The living archive

46 verified Texas occupational heat deaths, shown in full for transparency. This is the work itself — check it.

Methodology — how this archive works

OSHA accident pages never name victims. Names here come only from news reports or family memorials; where no name is public, the archive uses descriptive labels (for example, “Roofer, Houston”). Every case is verified against OSHA records or named media reporting.

The archive is living: new cases are added as records are verified. Source links open the federal OSHA or NIOSH record for that case. Archive notes preserve every attribution caveat.

Cases are filed as records are verified; numbers do not run in date order. A record under active verification is kept internal until it clears. Archive last updated October 2026.

04The Heat Advisory Commission

Our flagship policy objective: a state institution for the heat we already live with.

Texas and heat are synonymous — and the heat is getting worse. In March 2025 the National Weather Service renamed its “Excessive Heat Warning” to “Extreme Heat Warning,” because the old language no longer described Texas summers.

Yet Texas has no institution responsible for understanding who the heat kills, where, and doing what work. Heat deaths are routinely coded as cardiac arrest or “natural causes.” Occupation and jobsite information, when recorded at all, is buried in investigative narratives nobody aggregates. The independent archive you just browsed exists because no state system counts these workers at all.

The proposal

A standing Texas Heat Advisory Commission, charged with one umbrella mission: “institutionalize the visibility” of heat as a killer in Texas. Everything else follows from that.

Five organizing principles carry out the mission:

Count every heat casualty

Standardize heat-death reporting across all 254 counties — medical examiner offices and Justice of the Peace inquests alike. A death with heat as a contributing factor must be recorded as such, not laundered into “cardiac arrest.” What gets counted gets addressed; what doesn’t, doesn’t.

Put the jobsite on the record

Death reports must carry occupation, employer, and worksite information as structured data — not as an afterthought in a narrative. A roofer who dies at 108° and an office worker who dies at 108° are different policy problems. The form should know the difference.

Publish it

A public, regularly updated dashboard of heat casualties — deaths and hospitalizations — by county, occupation, and circumstance. Sunlight is the mechanism: employers, insurers, and the public should all see the same numbers.

Require employer reporting

Employers must report heat-related illness and hospitalization among workers, the way they report other workplace injuries. Voluntary data collection has produced a decade of undercounting.

Advise on standards

The commission should issue evidence-based guidance on water, shade, and rest requirements; acclimatization protocols for new and returning workers; and high-heat-day work rules — grounded in Texas data, not borrowed from milder states.

The ask

A legislative mandate creating the commission, with dedicated staff, records access to ME/JP offices, and a statutory requirement that its casualty data be public. Start with visibility. The standards will follow the numbers.

The Posters

Sixteen graphics the project shares with the ask — the case for the commission, the numbers behind it, and the stories the official counts leave out. Select a poster for the full-size image.

A ‘Texas needs a Heat Advisory Commission’ poster: 43 occupational heat deaths identified in the project's independent archive; a four-step diagram of how the system loses the story (heat exposure, medical coding, missing jobsite data, no statewide count); the five commission functions — count every heat casualty, put the jobsite on the record, publish the numbers, require employer reporting, advise on standards — and the ask: a commission with dedicated staff, statewide records access, standardized reporting, and a legal requirement that casualty data be public. — **“Texas needs a Heat Advisory Commission.”** The poster's case: the 43-case stat, the five functions, and the ask. The poster captured the archive at 43 verified public cases; the living archive now includes 46.

A ‘The Labor Bubble’ poster: 1) Hotter summers — by 2036, Texas 100°F days projected nearly four times as common as the 1970s and 80s. 2) An aging workforce — 238,500 Texans 55+ working in construction in 2023. 3) Replacement pressure — 15,679 projected annual Texas job openings 2024–2034 across electricians (8,102), plumbers and pipefitters (4,225), and HVAC technicians (3,352). 4) The protection fight — H.R. 6213 would block OSHA from finalizing or enforcing a federal workplace heat standard. Footer: Texas workers are being squeezed from every side. — **“The Labor Bubble.”** Hotter summers, an aging workforce, replacement pressure, and the federal protection fight — the numbers behind the push.

A ‘How the Pressure Builds’ poster: a structural spiral in construction and the trades with five layers — 1) The Job Is Built This Way (unstable employment, long hours, production pressure, financial strain, weak benefits), 2) Endurance Becomes the Job (push through pain, don’t slow the crew down, prove you can take it), 3) The Body Pays (injury, chronic pain, exhaustion, wear and tear, poor sleep), 4) Care Fails or Stays Out of Reach (no time off, expensive treatment, inconsistent coverage, pain goes undertreated, mental health care is hard to reach), 5) Coping Fills the Gap (alcohol, opioids, self-medication, isolation, silence) — feeding a red warning circle: ‘Worker breakdown becomes more likely — sometimes as injury, sometimes as addiction, sometimes as error, sometimes as suicide.’ Closing box: ‘This is a system problem, not a character flaw.’ — **“How the Pressure Builds.”** A structural spiral in construction: the job, endurance culture, the body pays, care out of reach, coping — a system problem, not a character flaw.

A ‘Texas Is Getting Hotter’ poster: a NOAA NCEI chart of average annual 100°F days by Texas region, 1974–2023, showing the days tripling, quadrupling, and more across the state's regions. — **“Texas Is Getting Hotter.”** Average annual 100°F days by Texas region, 1974–2023, NOAA NCEI.

A ‘The Deaths That Don’t Go on the OSHA Log’ poster: construction worker suicides (nearly 5,000) against fatal injuries on the OSHA log (1,034) in 2024 — mental health is a labor issue. — **“The Deaths That Don’t Go on the OSHA Log.”** Construction worker suicides vs. fatal injuries, 2024 — mental health is a labor issue.

A ‘The Texas Labor Bubble’ poster: demand stays strong while the workforce ages and the new-worker pipeline shrinks. 1) An aging workforce — in 2025 the Texas construction median age was 42.2, and 22% of construction workers were 55 or older. 2) Fewer new workers arriving — annual net migration to Texas fell from 441,000 to 235,000 across 2021–2025. 3) Demand didn’t disappear — Texas construction employment grew 2.3% in 2025, adding 20,000 jobs. Aging workforce + shrinking inflow + steady demand = a growing labor squeeze. Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. — **“The Texas Labor Bubble.”** An aging workforce, shrinking inflow, steady demand — a growing labor squeeze.

A ‘Texas Workers Still Waiting on Heat Protections’ poster: a 2010–2026 timeline of the protection fight — heat rules won in Austin and Dallas, the HB 2127 ‘Death Star’ state preemption of local protections, the contested federal OSHA heat standard, and H.R. 6213, which would block OSHA from enforcing heat protections. — **“Texas Workers Still Waiting on Heat Protections.”** The 2010–2026 timeline: local ordinances, HB 2127 preemption, the OSHA heat standard fight, H.R. 6213.

A ‘The Visible Count Isn’t the Full Count’ poster: Texas recorded 452 official heat deaths in 2024, but a study published in GeoHealth found only about one in six heat deaths surfaces in the official numbers — what isn’t counted is easier to ignore. — **“The Visible Count Isn’t the Full Count.”** 452 official Texas heat deaths in 2024 vs. the true toll — what isn’t counted is easier to ignore.

A ‘How a Worker Heat Death Disappears’ poster: the six handoffs where the heat signal weakens — the jobsite, the worker, the employer, the ER, the death certificate, and the official data. — **“How a Worker Heat Death Disappears.”** The six handoffs where the heat signal weakens: jobsite, worker, employer, ER, death certificate, official data.

A ‘The State Knows What Dangerous Heat Looks Like’ poster: heat protections in incarceration vs. heat protections at work. — **“The State Knows What Dangerous Heat Looks Like.”** Heat protections in incarceration vs. at work.

A ‘The Shift Ends. The Damage Can Stay.’ poster: long-term heat exposure effects — kidney damage and effects on fertility — that outlast the workday. — **“The Shift Ends. The Damage Can Stay.”** Long-term heat exposure: kidney damage, fertility effects.

An ‘America Has Two Literacy Crises’ poster: the worker who can read a building may be harder to replace than the worker who can read a meeting. — **“America Has Two Literacy Crises.”** The worker who can read a building may be harder to replace than the worker who can read a meeting.

A ‘The State Air Conditioning Helped Build’ poster: a chart of Texas population growth alongside the spread of residential air conditioning, 1950–2020 — the Texas population line rising from 7.7 million in 1950 to 29.1 million in 2020 while the share of homes with air conditioning climbs from 31% in 1960 to 67% in 1970 and 83% in 1980. Key air conditioning milestones: 1902, modern mechanical air conditioning developed; 1932, window AC units reach the market but are too expensive for most homes; 1947, 43,000 compact window units sold in the U.S.; late 1960s, central AC becomes common in new homes. A highlighted note reads ‘Correlation, not single cause: oil, defense spending, highways, suburbanization, and migration also drove Texas growth. But as home cooling spread, year-round life in extreme heat became easier at mass scale.’ Closing line: ‘Air conditioning didn’t make Texas less hot. It made living and building at this scale easier for millions of people. Someone still builds, repairs, wires, roofs, pours, and maintains the cooled world.’ Sources: U.S. Census Bureau; U.S. Department of Energy; Biddle (2008); Barreca et al. (NBER). — **“The State Air Conditioning Helped Build.”** Texas population growth alongside the spread of residential air conditioning, 1950–2020 — correlation, not single cause. Someone still builds, repairs, wires, roofs, pours, and maintains the cooled world.

An ‘A Tale of Two Texases: American Labor’ poster — how one state helped expand worker protections and restrict union power. Left column, expanding worker power: 1930s, the New Deal opens the field (the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 legitimized collective bargaining; Sam Rayburn, Wright Patman, John Nance Garner, Jesse Jones); 1937–1946, Texas labor organizes (Texas State Industrial Union Council founded 1937, Port Arthur's refinery center fully organized by 1943, roughly 350,000 Texas union members by 1946); 1957, labor builds political power (Ralph Yarborough's U.S. Senate victory); 1965–1966, Lyndon B. Johnson (asks Congress to repeal Taft-Hartley §14(b); Fair Labor Standards Act amendments expand federal wage-and-hour coverage); 1968–1970, a Texan helps build OSHA (Yarborough introduces an Occupational Safety and Health Act proposal in 1968, chairs the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare in 1969, and the Occupational Safety and Health Act passes in 1970). Right column, limiting union power: business against the New Deal; the Texas countermovement — the Texas Regulars, conservative Texas Democrats backed by oil and business interests who organized against Franklin Roosevelt, the New Deal, and labor unions in 1944; in 1947 Texas passes a right-to-work law plus anti-checkoff, anti-secondary-boycott, antitrust, and mass-picketing restrictions. Closing line: ‘Texas was never one labor story.’ — **“A Tale of Two Texases: American Labor.”** How one state helped expand worker protections — and restrict union power: the New Deal opens the field, Texas labor organizes, the Texas Regulars countermovement, Yarborough, LBJ, and a Texan helps build OSHA. Texas was never one labor story.

A ‘Texas Helped Build OSHA’ poster — before OSHA existed, two Texans helped put national workplace safety on the federal agenda. 1) 1968, the first push: President Lyndon B. Johnson calls for a comprehensive national workplace-safety law and Texas Sen. Ralph Yarborough introduces S. 2864, the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1968 — Congress never brings it to a final vote. 2) 1969, the fight outlives the administration: Johnson leaves office; Yarborough becomes chairman of the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare — the committee overseeing the workplace-safety fight — keeps the issue on the national agenda, noting Texas has ‘one of the poorest industrial safety laws in the nation.’ 3) 1970, the Texas push becomes a national coalition: Democratic Sen. Harrison Williams of New Jersey becomes the principal Senate sponsor, Yarborough remains an active cosponsor, and Republican Rep. William Steiger of Wisconsin advances a competing approach backed by the Nixon administration — by now the question is no longer whether workplace safety is a federal responsibility, only how to design it. 4) December 29, 1970, a bipartisan law: Congress reconciles the competing approaches and Republican President Richard Nixon signs the Williams-Steiger Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, creating OSHA, NIOSH, and the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission, and giving the Department of Labor authority to set and enforce workplace-safety standards. A summary strip runs LBJ (D) Texas → Yarborough (D) Texas → Williams (D) New Jersey + Steiger (R) Wisconsin → Nixon (R): Texas helped put comprehensive workplace safety on the agenda; a bipartisan Congress turned it into national law. Bottom panel, ‘The argument never ended’: 1968, who is responsible for preventing foreseeable injury and death at work? 1970, Congress creates a national system of employer duties, federal standards, and enforcement. Today, the same question reaches extreme heat — who bears the cost of making work safe? Closing banner: ‘The heat fight did not begin with us. We inherited it.’ — **“Texas Helped Build OSHA.”** Before OSHA existed, two Texans helped put national workplace safety on the federal agenda: 1968, LBJ and Yarborough make the first push; 1969, the fight outlives the administration; 1970, the Texas push becomes a national coalition — Williams and Steiger — and on December 29, 1970, Nixon signs the Williams-Steiger Occupational Safety and Health Act into law. The heat fight did not begin with us — we inherited it.

A ‘The Fight Runs Through Texas’ poster — the fight for Texas workers didn't end; the balance of power changed. 1) 1970, Yarborough falls: Ralph Yarborough, a leading ally of organized labor, is defeated in the Democratic primary by Lloyd Bentsen — Texas labor loses its strongest statewide voice in the U.S. Senate. 2) 1970s–1990s, the organized base shrinks: Texas unions had more than 400,000 members around 1960; by the early 1990s only about 21% of Texas workers were in industries where unions had traditionally been strong, down from roughly 47% twenty years earlier. 3) 1994–2002, the political map flips: George W. Bush wins the governorship in 1994; by 2002 Republicans control the governor's office, the Texas House and Senate, and every seat on the state's two highest courts. 4) Today, union power at a low: in 2025 only 4.9% of Texas wage-and-salary workers belong to a union, about half the national rate of 10.0%. 5) OSHA's enforcement arm is kneecapped: 618 federal OSHA inspectors, 1,651 federal and state inspectors, one inspector per 93,877 workers; the heat standard is still not final. 6) The fight never left. Closing line: ‘The institutions capable of giving workers leverage got smaller — the workers didn't.’ Footer icons: anti-union laws, weaker political power, underfunded enforcement, higher temperatures. — **“The Fight Runs Through Texas: Union Power.”** The fight for Texas workers didn’t end — the balance of power changed: Yarborough falls, the organized base shrinks, the political map flips, union power at a low, and OSHA’s enforcement arm is kneecapped. The institutions capable of giving workers leverage got smaller — the workers didn’t.

Future policy objectives

The commission is where it starts. Further policy objectives will be published here as they’re developed.

— HEAThens Against HEAT

05About

HEAThens Against HEAT is a worker-led project started by a Texas HVAC man who got tired of waiting for someone to count the workers the heat kills. Texas and heat are synonymous — Texas should be at the forefront of understanding the challenge, and the heat is getting worse. So we count the dead, we tell their stories, and we push for a state that counts them too.

— from a guy who crawls in attics.