In our spotlight on Business Report tonight, more protections for workers during extreme heat.

State lawmakers are renewing their fight to create better standards for workers during hot summer months.

A bill moving through Trenton would require companies to provide water shaded areas and paid breaks from the hot temperatures during heat waves.

But some employers are pushing back, arguing their businesses already have protections in place and claim the bill is too vague for them to follow.

Ted Goldberg has the latest.

No workers should have to choose between their job and going home safely to their family.

New Jersey is one step closer to mandating certain heat protections for most workers.

The Assembly Labor Committee passed a bill Thursday that brought up familiar debates about protecting employees from extreme heat.

Water, shade and rest their basic rights as workers and as people as being human.

It would be an irresponsible approach for us to try to legislate all the risk out of the world.

According to federal data, just under a thousand people nationwide died from heat related illness while on the job between 1992 and 2021.

Supporters of the bill say that's an under-reported number and that their jobs become even more dangerous during the summer months.

The back of our trucks and our vehicles are complete metal and they get up to 135 degrees during the hottest summer days.

You're completely covered in sweat.

You can get woozy.

You can get lightheaded.

And it's hard to breathe.

Many nursing home kitchens are also located in basements with little airflow, trapping heat from industrial ovens, steamers and dismisses.

It's a sad fact that we know that there are employers out there who care more about their bottom line and than the safety of their employees.

Among other things.

The bill requires employers to offer clean water, access to shade or climate controlled areas and time limits for how long people can be exposed to 85 degree heat.

The business industry has largely pushed back on this bill and similar bills in the past.

So if enacted, this legislation would require a significant expenditure to hire new employees.

And this is simply money that the state doesn't have to do.

So workers would have to stop doing what they're doing, possibly take a break.

Depends on how long.

And I don't want to tell a bride that her her chicken dinner cannot come out.

Most fuel retailers are small, independent.

They only have one employee working at a time.

If that employee is on a mandated break, then you effectively will not be able to legally buy gasoline during that window of time.

The penalties start at $500.

Fines and go up to a possible stop work order.

It's at the discretion of New Jersey's commissioner of labor.

There's a private right of.

Action buried in this bill that threatens to create a cottage industry for attorneys who are going to come out of the woodwork and pursue every small business that doesn't quite comply with the law.

$2,000 per employee employed at the time of the infraction.

$2,000.

If you have 100 employees, that's a potential liability of $200,000 for something that could amount to an employee saying the water is too warm.

There are some exemptions.

They include jobs related to the protection of life or property like law enforcement, firefighters and lifeguards.

Section five doesn't provide an exemption for a football player.

So we're going to have to give Woody Johnson and John Marion two billionaires an exemption unless we exempt all of them, in which case I'd like an exemption for everyone that I represent.

Employers have also argued that OSHA already monitors workplace safety and employee protections are already in place.

OSHA's guidelines do not include heat exposure.

And while the Biden administration had started to develop heat rules, it's uncertain if workers will get federal protection any time soon.

We applaud the employers who are already doing that, including those who are testifying today.

But the reality is that not all employers are protecting their workers.

The next stop for this bill is the full assembly.

While the Senate's version of the bill has yet to be voted on in committee in Trenton, I'm Ted Goldberg.

NJ Spotlight News.