The impact of climate disasters on working life – Technologist

Jose Olcina Asemad’s voice was still full of emotion. More than 10 days after the floods hit Valencia in Spain, this business owner narrowly escaped the disaster that struck the industrial zone on the city’s outskirts, where his small furniture manufacturing company is located. “I was on my way home at around 4:30 pm, and there was a line of cars in front of me. Some drivers began turning back toward me once others warned them that the ravine was overflowing,” he said. Along with 13 other people, he had no choice but to seek shelter in a company building located on higher ground, where he spent the night. “Today we’re drawing up an inventory, but 80% of the equipment seems to have been affected,” he said, his feet sinking into the mud covering the ground.

Getting back to work or ensuring continuity can be a long process, both materially and psychologically, for employees. Around Valencia, 350,000 employees and around 70,000 self-employed people have been affected by the floods. “Many small businesses and industries have been impacted and simply cannot resume their operations or implement teleworking for their employees,” said Salvador Navarro, president of the Valencia Community Business Confederation. At Valencia City Hall, for example, of the 1,000 employees who were directly or indirectly affected by the disaster, around half were able to work remotely.

In response to the emergency, the government has implemented subsidized temporary unemployment measures “due to force majeure.” These are similar to those put in place during the pandemic, except that individuals will not have to “make up” for the days they did not work. As tragedies linked to climate change are on the increase, the impact on workers is still managed in an emergency manner and not addressed structurally, both in Spain and in France, where the severe difficulties in the Valencian province are being watched closely.

Climate risk plan

Having witnessed the floods in northern France in 2023, Perrine Mohr, the general secretary of the CFDT labor union in the Hauts-de-France region, believes that it is necessary to begin reflecting on climate risks and how they should be managed by the authorities. While many companies in this region resorted to partial unemployment, some employees could not benefit from extra days off to cope with the disaster. “We worked with the public service ministry and the prefects to ensure that workers were granted leave of absence,” said Mohr. “This was accepted in the public sector. However, in the private sector, we were met with silence from some companies.”

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