WIRED
How Siestas Might Help Europe Survive Deadly Heat Waves
The snooze is optional. But as climate change intensifies, Northern European countries are seeing the appeal of Spain’s controversial midday break.
MORGAN MEAKER BUSINESS AUG 2, 2022 7:00 AM
THE TARMAC IN Madrid was around 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) by 2.30 pm, the time José Antonio González started his shift as a street cleaner on July 16. The 60-year-old didn’t arrive at work in the middle of Europe’s heat wave unprepared. He carried with him two 2-liter water bottles and a homemade water sprayer to keep himself cool, his son told Spanish newspaper El Pais. But it wasn’t enough. Three hours into his shift, he collapsed from heatstroke. He died later in a hospital...
González’s death sparked an overhaul of the rules among the companies that clean Madrid’s streets. In agreement with the city and local unions, the companies banned working in temperatures hotter than 39 degrees Celsius (102 Fahrenheit) and pushed shifts back from 2.30 pm to 5 pm. Despite Spain’s reputation for long lunch breaks, this is usually more common for office workers
Street cleaning is not the only industry rethinking its working hours after blistering heat waves pushed temperatures across Europe above 40 degrees—far above the 16- to 24-degree window (60-75 Fahrenheit) that unions say is optimum for work. In response, workers across Europe have been calling for the working day to be restructured to suit a warming world.
These calls are not just emerging out of southern Europe but also from traditionally cooler countries: A construction union in Germany is campaigning for longer lunch breaks so workers can avoid the hottest part of the day, while one garden center in the Netherlands is already taking them.
But in doing so, these workers’ groups are proposing echoing the jornada partida—the split working day—which allows people to take a break, have a long lunch, or enjoy a siesta (Spanish for nap). This daily structure has long proved controversial in Spain. The system means many employees in Spain take a two-hour lunch break during the hottest part of the day, but as a result, they end up working late into the evening. Around 30 percent of Spanish employees work until 7 pm, and 10 percent are still at their desks at 9 pm, to work for a second shift between 4 pm and 7 pm.
