
Many international agencies and trade unions are highlighting the impact of climate change on workers. Excessive heat in the workplace poses occupational health risks to workers, especially those working outdoors. Climate stressors exacerbate existing vulnerabilities in the context of countries like India, where the majority of workers are in the informal sector, doing precarious work with very little social protection. In this article, Silpa Satheesh and Manasi M address the impact of climate change on workers in Kerala by discussing the health impacts and productivity losses due to climate variability and extreme weather events. And they call for sector-specific climate policies to mitigate the effects of heat exposure and ensure worker safety.
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From the raging fires in Los Angeles, California to the widespread flooding in Europe, the global manifestations of climate change are unfolding before our eyes. Yet we have managed to develop a sense of insulation from these events, with business as usual continuing in almost every country, save for some facework in the form of relief and recovery efforts. Despite studies showing how climate change affects poor and marginalized workers the most, even in so-called progressive circles there are still arguments that the effects of climate change are like a tide, that as the water rises it will sink us all.
Despite pockets of denial, many international agencies and trade unions are highlighting the impact of climate change on workers in the Global South, particularly in the informal sector. Reports published by the UNDP and the ILO explain how excessive heat in the workplace poses a threat to occupational health and productivity in countries such as India, where more than 90% of workers are employed in the informal sector. In this context, we seek to examine the impact of climate change on people who work in the sun through their everyday experiences. From the perspective of headload workers (workers who manually load and unload goods) and farmers, we highlight the increased vulnerability of workers and the limitations of existing government interventions.
“You cannot choose when to work!”
Kerala faced a harsh summer in 2024 with rising temperatures, heat waves and heat-related deaths. The state seems to be bracing itself for another sweltering year as 2025 is predicted by the WMO (World Meteorological Organization) to be the warmest year for global average temperature. The state has taken a number of measures, including HAP (Heat Action Plans), announcements of heat stroke alerts and awareness campaigns, among others, to mitigate the effects of the abnormal rise in temperature. There is growing agreement and concern among workers in Kerala about the effects of climate change. In an interview, one worker pointed out that “both labor and climate are in crisis,” alluding to the double burden that workers face in coping with climate change while securing a livelihood in the neoliberal era.
One of the groups most affected by rising daytime temperatures and the resulting heat stress was outdoor laborers, who work in open spaces to earn a living. During field visits, workers shared concerns about the health effects they were experiencing in terms of physical discomfort, fatigue and illness as a result of exposure to intense heat. The Kerala State Labour Department intervened by changing the working hours to limit workers’ exposure to heat. The working hours were changed from 7 am to 7 pm, with a mandatory three-hour break between noon and 3 pm. Although the change in working hours appeared to reduce exposure, discussions with workers highlighted how the nature of the work and the sector determined the effectiveness of such measures.
For example, commenting on the change in working hours, Babu, a headload worker in Kottayam, said, “Of course we continue to work in the sun. We unload when the cargo comes, that’s how it works. You cannot wait for the right climate to unload a truck, you know.” The nature and availability of work and the attitude of employers are important considerations in determining the benefits of working time restrictions. Describing how traders and shopkeepers ignore these warnings, Babu continued as follows:
“See, we pay attention to the guidelines, but the traders or shop owners don’t care about these. For them, it is important that the loading and unloading happen on time. And they will make us do that, no matter how. So, for them, when a truck comes and then we untie the stock and unload it, this should all happen in about ten minutes, and that’s what they want…that’s all that they want. Given our positions, we cannot say No, right?”
Since loading and unloading is a critical part of the supply chain, distributors insist on minimizing the time spent on it to reduce costs and prevent any delays in turnaround. Describing the peculiarities of the work that make time a crucial part and therefore make existing government guidelines redundant, Babu remarked:
“Figuring out a policy for us is difficult. If it’s casual labour, you could suggest pausing work during the period of heavy exposure and then resume later. We cannot do that because the loads are coming from far away, sometimes from other states. So, it becomes our responsibility to unload it immediately without waiting for the stipulated timings. And there are times when the loads for five or six shops arrive at once. And to unload them all, sometimes we start as early as 3:30 in the morning…that’s when these trucks arrive at the market. It doesn’t matter is it’s raining cats and dogs, or scorching heat, we are required to work. And there’s no extra payment to work under such circumstances.”
In a sector where time is money, employers deliberately choose to ignore government guidelines, and workers are apprehensive about the prospects of a government measure that can alleviate heat exposure or protect their wages during inclement weather. The shared reservations about the policy reinforce the need for a sector-specific, binding and bottom-up policy. In addition, social factors emerged as an aspect that increases vulnerability to climate disruption. For example, when talking about the difficulties of working in the sun, one worker explained: “All workers experience this, and it gets worse with age, you see. But some of them are like 57 or 58 years old and still working with us. Age makes it more difficult to deal with the heat.”
“When our crops fail, we fail”
The adverse effects of climate change pose unique challenges for farmers, as the variability and extremity of weather events lead to crop loss and damage. While farmers in lowland areas experience the effects of unpredictable rainfall, recurrent and prolonged flooding, and saltwater intrusion, farmers in hilly areas struggle with rising temperatures and erratic rainfall patterns. Describing the problems faced on the ground, Sindhu, a farmer from Idukki, said:
“Climate change is seriously affecting us. The rains earlier used to be during June, but now the spell happens in August or September. And the heat also brings us trouble. If in earlier days Idukki was known for its chilly climate, of late the climate here is quite the same as the one you would find in rest of Kerala. It’s getting warmer.”
The changing climatic reality of the highlands is vividly illustrated by the story of how both the monsoon and the scorching summer affect the farmers’ crops. In the wetlands, waterlogging during the monsoon causes root rot, which rots the entire plant. The summer months are no easier, as the drying up of canals and rivers often forces farmers to rely on salty water collected in bunds, which destroys crops.
Importantly, the farmers carefully placed climate disruption within the larger structural issues facing Indian agriculture. For example, Nisha shared the vicious cycle that pushes farmers to the brink:
“We are struggling financially. Those who have land are often staying away from agriculture. It is people like us who are poor but take out a loan to lease land and end up farming. So, when the crops fail that adds to our stress, and at times lead to farmer suicides.”
Dependence on chemical fertilizers, popularly known as the ‘poison cycle,’ also emerged as a factor contributing to financial stress. Farmers from both the lowlands and the highlands pointed out that the natural fertility of the soil diminishes over the years, requiring the repeated use of chemical fertilizers to maintain productivity. Since the majority of the farmers we spoke with farmed on leased land, the dependence on fertilizer added to their financial burden. Farmers noted that even when they managed to get a fair price for their crops, it was rarely enough to cover the cost of labor or the cost of using chemical fertilizers, which, according to Geetha, “kill the whole plant except the pest.”
The role of trade unions
The experiences described above point to the need for state intervention to ensure the health, safety and well-being of workers who are highly exposed to climate change. The experiences of the farmers discussed here highlight how the issue of agricultural debt trap and dependence on chemical pesticides increases their vulnerability to climate-induced crop losses, and thus remains as a critique of modern agricultural policies that are exclusionary and resource-intensive. The entanglement of climate disruption with existing structural problems exposes the limitations of state policies that address climate change as a single issue, and instead highlights the need for structural interventions that are contextualized and participatory.
There is a need for in-depth research that maps the impact of climate change on workers and the extent of the damage it is causing to poor and working class families in Kerala. And here it is pertinent to consider how the impact of climate change on individual workers varies according to their social characteristics and identities, including class, caste, gender, age and disability. Recent studies underscore the existence of caste inequalities in occupational heat exposure in contemporary India. This is particularly due to their socially marginalized position, which alienates these workers from resources, pushes them into risky and marginal areas, and forces them into precarious jobs, including manual agricultural or sanitation work.
It is equally important to explore the role of trade unions in collectivizing the climate grievances of workers in Kerala. Despite the concerns raised globally by organizations including trade unions, institutionalized trade unions in India have largely looked away from climate change. With the exception of the CPI(ML), communist parties in India have largely overlooked the impact of climate change on workers, mostly taking the line that India is too poor to worry about environmental issues.
In the context of Kerala, the absence of discussions on how climate change exacerbates the existing vulnerabilities of workers is more problematic given its unique history of labor struggles. This omission can largely be explained by an approach that does not consider environmental grievances, or more specifically climate grievances, as a working class issue. In this context, we seek to highlight the impact of climate change on informal workers in India, emphasize the need for more research to unpack the complexities, and call for government intervention.
Note from the editors: This article is based on interviews the authors conducted with workers as part of an exploratory project to understand the intersection of labor and climate change in Kerala.