California Voice: Why were prison workers excluded from state’s new indoor heat rules?

California’s workplace safety board recently approved an indoor heat protection standard and urged Cal/OSHA to put it into full effect as quickly as possible. Nearly two decades after the state’s outdoor workers won heat protections, millions of California’s indoor workers will finally also be protected.

Tragically, this victory for workers must be tempered by the callous decision to cut out more than 100,000 workers from its scope. Corrections workers and detainees who labor in California’s hundreds of jails and prisons...