For years, UPS truck drivers asked the delivery giant to install air-conditioning in its ubiquitous brown vans. The company resisted, even as temperatures climbed and drivers suffered from heatstroke.
Now, David Keeling, a former health and safety executive at UPS who some workers blame for the inaction, is President Trump’s pick to lead the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the federal agency that regulates workplace safety. A Senate committee is scheduled to vote Thursday on his confirmation.
Mr. Keeling, who spent nearly four decades at UPS before moving to Amazon in 2021, would be taking helm at the agency just as it considers the first federal rule designed to protect as many as 36 million workers from extreme heat. Among other things it would require employers in industries like agriculture, construction and manufacturing to provide water and rest breaks when temperatures pass certain levels.
Labor unions are split on his appointment. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which endorsed President Trump, has also backed Mr. Keeling, saying that as a former tradesman with deep experience in health and safety, he was just the person for the federal government’s top worker-safety job.
“He’s someone we feel we are able to have a conversation with,” said Kara Deniz, a spokeswoman for the Teamsters, which represents 340,00 UPS drivers and package handlers.
But some labor advocates, as well as drivers who worked under Mr. Keeling at UPS, say they struggled to get the company to take measures to address dangerous heat conditions. That included requests for air-conditioning in delivery trucks and personal cooling gear. They say UPS told them that air-conditioning wouldn’t be effective because of the trucks’ frequent stops.
Since 2015, more than 80 UPS workers have suffered severe heat-related injuries, including during Mr. Keeling’s time overseeing the company’s global health and safety operations through 2021, according to data reported to OSHA. In 2023, after UPS drivers threatened to strike, the company agreed to start fitting new trucks with air-conditioning.
“We were just slowly cooking,” said Robert Johnston, who drove delivery trucks in Arizona for almost three decades before finding a job with Gila County last year. “It felt like we would have a driver a week go down, and end up going to the E.R. with heat stress,” he said. “David Keeling was in a position to change those things, and he didn’t do it.”
UPS said in a statement that it doesn’t take a position on individual nominations, but that it valued “collaboration with all public officials and regulators to ensure policies support a safe and efficient logistics industry.” It said that it was installing air-conditioning in its vehicles and buildings, and was providing its workers with cooling gear, including performance gear that workers dunk in cold water.
Amazon said safety is its top priority, and that its heat mitigation practices meet or exceed state requirements and current federal guidance.
Both UPS and Amazon have lobbied against federal heat rules. In a January letter to OSHA, Mr. Keeling’s successor at UPS, Cormac Gilligan, urged the agency to reconsider its proposed rules.
The company has already taken various steps to address heat, Mr. Gilligan said in the letter. “UPS believes that our drivers and package handlers are world-class industrial athletes,” he wrote.
Anastasia Christman, senior policy analyst at the National Employment Law Project, a pro-labor organization, said she understood “that people who come from running big businesses might have some real experience in health and safety. That said, I don’t think his track record would indicate he’s a real champion on these issues.”
Mr. Keeling declined to comment beyond a February post on LinkedIn in which he had expressed his gratitude to President Trump for the nomination. In that post, he said that, if confirmed, he was excited “to further OSHA’s mission to enhance workplace safety and health.”
At his confirmation hearing this month, he voiced a preference for standards that are set by an industry, not the government. Industry-set standards, he said, undergo “more rigorous review, regular updating, and continuous improvement” than OSHA standards.
In response to a question from Senator Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, asking whether he was committed to putting a heat rule in place, Mr. Keeling said he would “review and consider stakeholder concerns and recommendations prior to determining how to move forward with this rule-making.”
“He would not commit,” Mr. Markey said in an interview. “I have no faith that Mr. Keeling, or any Trump nominee, will break course from his deregulatory onslaught.”
Requests for Cooling Vests
Maurice Nelson, a longtime UPS driver and union steward, drove a truck in Arizona’s heat for years. “Open doors and 40 miles an hour. That was our air-conditioning,” he said.
As UPS declined to add air-conditioning to its delivery trucks under successive safety executives, including Mr. Keeling, he asked the company to distribute rechargeable cooling vests to drivers. “But they said, ‘Oh, we’re not spending money on that,’” said Mr. Nelson, who two years ago punched out for the last time after 50 years at UPS.
Teamsters for a Democratic Union, a splinter group of UPS drivers, has accused the company of continuing to be slow to put new air-conditioned trucks on the road. It has also criticized Mr. Keeling’s nomination. “Teamsters know bosses rarely care about our safety,” it said. “Now more than ever, we need to fight for ourselves.”
UPS said that since 2023, new vehicles at the company have been fitted with air-conditioning. (Mr. Keeling left UPS in 2021.) It also said that it had upgraded its older delivery trucks to reduce temperature and improve airflow, including adding heat shields on the exhaust to keep the floor cooler.
The company said it had also provided more than 1 million pieces of cooling gear to drivers, including hats and sleeves, as well cooling vests to workers in warehouses, which they submerge in ice water.
Because drivers might leave their trucks 100 to 150 times a day, “air conditioning is not helping anybody during a big chunk of their time,” said Douglas Casa of the Korey Stringer Institute at the University of Connecticut, a health center that advises UPS on heat strategy. “I’m happy that they’re moving toward air-conditioned vehicles,” he said, but pointed out that other cooling products, education and hydration are also important.
Mr. Keeling’s brief time at Amazon, as director of global road and transportation safety from 2021 to 2023, coincided with heightened criticism over worker deaths and injuries under extreme heat, as well as the company’s opposition to workers’ attempts to unionize. Amazon delivery drivers and others have started to organize in some locations.
Amazon said it has received just three heat-related OSHA citations for inadequate safety protections since 2019, one of which was withdrawn, another which was downgraded, and one which the company was contesting.
The debate over the heat rule comes as OSHA faces steep cuts to its budget under President Trump, as well as an executive order by the president that federal agencies should repeal at least 10 rules for every new one.
Jordan Barab, deputy assistant secretary of OSHA during the Obama administration, said that Mr. Keeling “is not an ideologue who’s dedicated his life to destroying the agency, so at least that’s good.” Still, he said, there remains the question of “whether the rule is going to go anywhere.”
Risk From Rising Temperatures
Illnesses and deaths related to heat exposure have increased in recent years as climate change pushes temperatures higher. Extreme heat puts stress on the body by making the heart work harder, increasing the risk of cardiovascular issues like heart attacks.
About 40 workers die each year from exposure to environmental heat, the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates. Experts say that number is likely an undercount because heat-related injuries are often blamed on underlying health conditions or on other workplace accidents. Workers in agriculture, construction and delivery services are particularly vulnerable.
Last year was the hottest on record. On average heat kills more people annually than hurricanes, floods and tornadoes combined, according to the National Weather Service.
Prevention of heat-related illnesses can be straightforward, experts say. People generally need shade, rest and water.
Last year the Biden administration proposed a rule establishing heat thresholds that trigger specific employer responsibilities. At a “heat index” of 80 degrees, a measurement that combines air temperature with humidity to measure how hot the air feels to a human body, companies must provide water and break areas. At 90 degrees, they must offer 15-minute breaks once every two hours, in addition to other measures.
The thresholds are based on scientific research. A 2020 OSHA study of 570 heat-related deaths determined that 96 percent of deaths happened above an 80-degree heat index.
Industry Opposition
At recent OSHA hearings, industry groups opposed the measures. The proposed standard made no allowances for differences in workplaces or employee sensitivity to heat, said Marc Freedman, vice president of workplace policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which counts UPS and Amazon among its members.
In addition, mandating breaks “would be highly disruptive to many workplaces,” he said. “Consider, for example, airline baggage handlers and the impact mandatory 15-minute breaks would have on moving passenger luggage.”
Heat thresholds “must be higher than a mere 80 degrees,” Mr. Freedman said. “Employees are not exposed to any kind of injury and illness threat at 80 degrees,” he said, “based on what I hear from my employers and my members.”
Union representatives, meanwhile, pushed for more protections than the proposed rule would offer.
“We believe that the standard should provide workers with an explicit right to stop working as soon as they experience signs or symptoms of heat-related illness, which can quickly escalate into a life-threatening situation,” said Darius Sivin, an occupational health scientist at United Auto Workers. “If the air-conditioning breaks, work should be suspended until it is fixed.”
A handful of states, including California, Colorado, and Minnesota, have adopted workplace heat standards. However, state legislatures in Florida and Texas have passed laws that prevent local governments from establishing their own workplace heat standards.
Rebecca Reindel, director of occupational safety at the AFL-CIO, which represents 15 million workers across a range of industries, said the lack of heat regulations in most states left workers vulnerable and made federal standards critical. “Letting employers address heat however they want, with no rules whatsoever, is what we have now in most places,” she said.
Claire Brown contributed reporting and Kitty Bennett contributed research.
Hiroko Tabuchi covers pollution and the environment for The Times. She has been a journalist for more than 20 years in Tokyo and New York.
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