Mamdani signs first New York City heat protections for outdoor workers
Mamdani signed New York City’s first heat protections for outdoor workers as the forecast climbed toward 109 degrees, putting delivery and sanitation crews at the center of the city’s response.
Delivery workers, sanitation staff and construction crews are now covered by New York City’s first executive order aimed at outdoor heat protection, signed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani on June 22 just as a holiday-weekend heat spike bore down on the city.
The order was developed with the TEMP Coalition, the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health, 32BJ SEIU and dozens of labor unions and community organizations. It is aimed at the more than 1.4 million New Yorkers the city estimates work outdoors for prolonged periods, roughly one-third of the workforce, and it reinforces existing protections such as bathroom access and workplace reporting requirements.
City officials said the first heat wave of 2026 was expected to intensify Wednesday, peak around 109 degrees on Friday and continue into the July Fourth weekend. They said 100-degree readings in Central Park would be the first there since July 2012.
New York also activated a Heat Emergency Plan on June 29. The response included hundreds of cooling centers, never-before-used COOL vans, expanded pop-up cooling stations for outdoor workers and more than 2,200 LinkNYC kiosks displaying real-time walking directions to the nearest cooling center within a 10-minute walk.
Mamdani said the city had already weathered two extreme heat emergencies in the spring and pointed to June 24 of the previous year, when Central Park reached 99 degrees and JFK hit 102 degrees. Labor advocates said the order was the product of years of organizing around worker heat safety, and NYCOSH called it a major milestone in its campaign for stronger protections against extreme temperatures.
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