Northern california
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Californians say they were fired for leaving their jobs in sweltering heat. Is the state on their side?
They worked nearly three triple-digit days before it felt unsafe to go on.
Maria Paredes said she already had a headache while working in a tomato field near Dixon on June 5, when high temperatures hit between 99 to 107 degrees. The hotter the next day got, the 40-year-old farmworker said, “the more it started to go back to my head, and I started to feel like vomiting.”
Seeing other workers feeling ill, Paredes and five coworkers said they got their forewoman’s permission to go home early on June 6, during one of the first heat waves this year.