A temperature of 70 degrees, which has been a norm for years, is just fine. Employees who perform highly laborious jobs can comfortably work in lower temperatures because of increased body heat. Regardless of increased body heat and added layers of clothing, including coats and other uniform elements (with the exception of heated clothing/uniforms, i.e. Gobi heated jackets, etc.), no employee should work in freezing temperatures. No employee should work in excessive heat, with the exception of those wearing air-conditioned clothing (i.e. Octocool air conditioned shirts) and/or other gear with proven cooling qualities, which should be provided by the employer if employees do not have them.
Notwithstanding, employees who work inside, including those employed in warehouses, should and can be provided with sufficient heat and air without use of temperature-regulated clothing. To drastically reduce costs, employers should convert to clean energy, i.e. solar panels. They should additionally utilize non-toxic plastic industrial curtains to avoid loss of heat and air where vehicles like forklifts must routinely transport freight to and from warehouses.
In many if not most instances, warehouses can be re-designed in such a way that it is not necessary to utilize forklifts or other vehicles to transport manufactured goods or other freight. Conveyor belts could deliver those items directly to airplanes and freight trucks from warehouses, and there would be no need for vehicular openings that subject warehouse workers to extreme temperatures.
Companies that utilize airplanes and freight trucks to deliver freight could otherwise enclose their airplane and freight truck loading areas, which would ideally be connected to synonymous sort facilities. The noted enclosures would have centralized heat and air and garage-like doors that would only be opened upon arrival of empty airplanes and freight trucks and upon their departure once they are full.
To address the issue of fumes from tugs, those that utilize gasoline could be replaced by electric tugs, noting that all tugs should be enclosed and, preferably, have heat and air to protect employees from extreme cold in winter and other cold days and from extreme heat in summer and other hot days and from precipitation any time of the year, for any periods when it is imperative that the drivers must drive outside. Exhaust filters could be placed on tugs that utilize gasoline and/or fume extractors could be placed in enclosed areas where tugs and other vehicles are utilized. Additionally, employees could be required to wear protective masks. Airplanes and freight truck engines are shut off during loading...
Warehouse sort facilities could otherwise be designed to place openings away from employee work areas; this, in addition to incorporating extended vestibules into warehouses via which forklifts, tugs, and other freight-transporting vehicles would carry freight from sort to airplanes and/or freight trucks would help to protect employees from extreme external temperatures. Again, all warehouses should have optimized central heat and air that could, again, be powered by solar energy for further cost savings...
No employees should be unnecessarily required to work outside when a better system could be implemented that would place their work indoors. Because temperature regulation in the workforce is a matter that should concern the Department of Labor, DOL should have staffed consultants who would be deployed to companies like warehouses that are challenged to provide economical temperature regulation solutions...
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