The Brief

During a summer that has already shattered temperature records, the 340,000 drivers, dispatchers, and warehouse workers currently in contract negotiations with UPS — the United States’ largest unionized employer — have made climate change and extreme heat a headline labor issue. And if they don’t secure a contract by July 31, they are poised to initiate the largest single-employer strike in U.S. history.

On summer days, the back of a delivery truck can exceed 120 degrees Fahrenheit. When Viviana Gonzalez, a package delivery driver for United Postal Service in Los Angeles, pulls open the back of her truck, she often thinks: “Am I going to pass out back here? Will anybody find out that I’m here in the back of the truck?”

Gonzalez is all too aware of how dangerous her job can be. Since 2015, UPS has reported at least 143 heat-related injuries to the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Last year, one of her co-workers, Esteban Chavez, died of heat stroke in his delivery truck after delivering his last parcel. “I’m a single mom,” said Gonzalez, “and being able to provide for my son means I have to suck it up.”

While climate change is making summers hotter and even more dangerous for delivery workers, Moe Nouhaili, a UPS driver in Las Vegas, told the Guardian that it’s the working conditions that make the heat so deadly. “It’s how they’re making us work, expecting us to meet these unrealistic productivity numbers even through the weather,” he said.

UPS often requires drivers and warehouse employees to work six days a week and more than 12 hours a day in the heat, and the company measures worker productivity by surveillance cameras and sensors inside trucks. Drivers say these tactics make it harder to take breaks. “The same amount of work that would be done in, say, 30 routes is now being forced to be done in 20 or 25,” said Nouhaili. “Less people get more work done.”

An increasing portion of the work is also done by part-time drivers who are paid less than full-time employees, as well as gig workers who often need to take on multiple jobs to make ends meet.

That’s why the UPS workers, who are part of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters union, have tied their heat-safety demands to other key issues: higher wages for all workers; more full-time jobs with full benefits; an end to forced overtime, surveillance, and harassment from management; and elimination of a two-tier wage system that pays part-time workers and newer employees differently for the same work.

According to Anastasia Christman, a senior policy analyst at the National Employment Law Project, many of these benefits and protections form the basis of climate justice at work and can better protect workers from the heat.

“Workers who are fighting for better health care benefits are going to be more physically able to deal with excessive heat, because they can address other underlying health problems,” she said. “An increase in pay might mean workers can spend time at home without having to take on a second job to support their family, eat healthy food, or afford to get an air conditioner in their house and really cool down and recover from the heat during their off-hours.”

She also argues that part-time employment, piece-wage and contract pay structures, and low-grade wage tiers can affect workers on the margins to a greater extent than others.

“These workers, who are overwhelmingly Black workers, immigrant workers, and women, literally can’t afford to take breaks or lose time to take care of their health,” she explained. By pushing for more full-time direct employees and fewer contractors, Christman said, workers build solidarity and make sure that certain job classes don’t disproportionately face environmental harms like extreme heat.

UPS workers negotiate a new contract once every five years, and the strike authorization in June was the result of a yearlong campaign on behalf of the union to build leverage at the bargaining table. The strategy appears to be working: In the last month, with the strike threat looming, UPS agreed to install air-conditioning systems in each of their delivery trucks, end the secondary wage tier that allows them to pay newer drivers less, and do away with mandatory overtime.

“UPS Teamsters have strategically navigated this process for maximum leverage against this multibillion-dollar corporation,” said Teamsters President Sean O’Brien. “At every step, we are forcing them to do what they don’t want to do, which is give our members more money and better protections at work.”

UPS drivers practice picketing outside a warehouse in preparation for a potential strike at the end of the month.

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International Brotherhood of Teamsters

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While air-conditioning will indeed offer welcome relief to UPS drivers in the heat, experts argue that at a global scale, energy-intensive cooling systems pale as a long-term climate-justice solution. Air-conditioning units burn more fossil fuels, increase ambient temperatures in cities, and are inaccessible to most outdoor workers — and most of the global population.

On its own, the company’s concession also doesn’t address the growing issues of pay, contracting, and worker productivity that drive workers to heat exhaustion.

So despite the gains, UPS workers are still not satisfied. The biggest remaining issue is pay: They are looking to raise the starting hourly wage for part-time workers from $15.50 to $20. And they have repeatedly said that if UPS does not meet their baseline wage demands, they will be forced to strike to win them.

In recent years, restaurant workers at Voodoo Donuts in Portland, Oregon; a McDonalds in Detroit; a Jack in the Box in Sacramento; and a Hooters location in Houston have collectively walked off the job to protect themselves from extreme heat. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which is in the process of developing a federal workplace heat standard, has acknowledged that taking collective action can help workers stay safe on the job and has developed a legal framework “to obtain the best possible relief for employees” when they choose to do so.

“The suggestion box sitting in the break room is not really the place to address the dangers of systemic heat exposure,” said Christman, the National Employment Law Project analyst. “When workers come together, they build power to really make changes at the workplace.”

The Teamsters union has plainly stated that this campaign will be an example for workers across the country. “What we do in these negotiations,” said O’Brien, “is going to set the tone for the entire country, the entire labor movement, moving forward. The UPS fight today may be your fight tomorrow.”

“It’s time for UPS to feel the heat,” said Rick Jordan, another delivery driver in Southern California. “We feel it all the time.”

The 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan begin Friday and eight athletes have roots in Southern California, including Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

Team USA’s 232-member roster includes 21 athletes from California. The Winter Games begin Feb. 6 and end on Feb. 22.

Here's a list of who is from L.A. County:

• Spencer Akira Howe - Figure Skating - Los Angeles
• Madison Chock - Figure Skating - Redondo Beach
• Chloe Kim - Snowboarding - Torrance
• Azaria Hill - Bobsled - Santa Clarita
• Beatrice Kim - Snowboarding - Palos Verdes 

Where other SoCal athletes are from:

• Cayla Barnes - Ice Hockey - Eastvale
• Kate Delson - Snowboarding - San Diego
• Maddie Mastro - Snowboarding - Wrightwood

What about the 2026 Paralympics? The Milano Cortina 2026 Paralympics will start on March 6 and run through March 15. Not all qualifying athletes have been announced yet.

You can watch the games starting Friday on NBC and streaming on Peacock.

Local, state and federal law enforcement agencies have reported using thousands of crowd control munitions against protesters in L.A. since June 2025, when federal immigration sweeps began escalating tensions in the region.

Many people who were never accused of breaking the law nonetheless have been struck by what are known as “less-lethal” crowd control weapons, including rubber bullets, tear gas and flash bang grenades.

Legal experts and witnesses told LAist some of these instances violated California’s protest laws.

While a federal judge banned the LAPD from using 40mm projectiles at protests last month, the department still uses other crowd control weapons. According to Scott Reynhout, who researches these weapons for Physicians for Human Rights, a nonpartisan nonprofit, some of these weapons can be just as dangerous as the banned projectiles — if not more so.

LAist spoke with Reynhout to better understand what they do and how people protesting lawfully can protect themselves.

Reynhout said it's very important that people pay attention if law enforcement declares an unlawful assembly, which they are required to do before using crowd control weapons in most cases.

“ If the police have declared an illegal assembly, it would behoove you to take steps to isolate yourself from that particular situation,” Reynhout said. “If that is not possible for you, for whatever reason — say, you live in the particular area where you are — then you could consider [protecting] yourself from chemical irritants or potentially from impact projectiles.”

Some of the most dangerous crowd control weapons used in L.A.

Physicians for Human Rights’ international study, Lethal in Disguise, found weapons that fire multiple projectiles at once were “far and away the most dangerous” type of crowd control weapons.

 "82% of all the recorded injuries in the medical literature that came from impact projectiles were from ... multiple projectile impact projectiles,” Reynhout told LAist. “And 96% of all the ocular injuries from impact projectiles were from these multiple projectile impact projectiles."

He said the LAPD is the only police department in the U.S. he is aware of that uses this type of weapon. The department uses a 37mm less-lethal launcher (LLM) that shoots five rubber bullets with each shell.

According to reports required by Assembly Bill 48, the department used more than 600 of these shells — that’s over 3,000 projectiles — against anti-ICE protesters last June. They have continued to report using the 37mm launcher, most recently to disperse crowds after the Dodgers World Series win on Nov. 2, according to AB 48 reports.

The 37mm launcher is inherently risky, Reynhout said. Even though the 37mm rubber bullets are smaller than the 40mm projectiles the LAPD was banned from using at protests, they are more likely to hit sensitive areas like the face and neck.

The use of multiple projectiles causes the 37mm projectiles to scatter in a cone shape once they leave the launcher, making them much more difficult to control than a single projectile. He said LAPD’s policy of “skip firing,” which means officers are instructed to aim 5 to 10 feet in front of the person they are shooting at, also adds randomness.

A diagram showing LAPD's policy of "skip firing" the 37mm less-lethal launcher at targets.

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LAPD Use of Force Directive

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“ The real risk behind these multi-shot impact projectiles,” he said, “is that you just really don't have any control over where these bullets go in the end.”

Reynhout said people standing beside or behind the intended target could very easily get hit, which he believes was likely the case when Australian reporter Lauren Tomasi was struck in the leg by a rubber bullet in June.

[Note: LAist correspondent Adolfo Guzman-Lopez was struck in the throat by a projectile at a 2020 protest. Long Beach police later said they believed that injury was caused by a ricochet of a foam round.]

LAist reached out to LAPD for comment on their use of the 37mm launcher, but the department did not respond.

Another type of crowd control weapon found to be especially dangerous is the use of beanbag rounds, usually fired from a 12-gauge shotgun. These rounds fire small lead pellets sealed in a fabric bag.

Reynhout said the use of these rounds can be “horrific” and leave people with life-threatening injuries.

According to LAPD policy, beanbag rounds are not allowed to be used for crowd control, but other agencies have used them. The California Highway Patrol reported using beanbag rounds against anti-ICE protesters last June.

If you find yourself in a situation where projectiles are being deployed, Reynhout advises focusing on protecting your face and eyes. That’s where the most serious injuries occur.

Reynhout said ballistic eyewear that meets military standards (MIL-PRF-32432) could offer protection against some of the most severe injuries.

He said the 40mm or 37mm projectiles can be similar to getting hit by a golf ball by someone swinging just 6 feet away, and while things like bike helmets, paintball masks, hockey masks or even soft body armor might help to some degree, they aren’t designed to protect someone from that kind of impact.

What you may most likely be affected by: Chemical agents

Chemical agents like tear gas and pepper spray are crowd control weapons that saturate an area and affect everyone in it, Reynhout told LAist, and that includes people who may not even be part of a demonstration.

He said you should be especially aware of these weapons being used near you if you have asthma or any airway or respiratory system issues because they can provoke severe reactions in some cases.

In their report, Reynhout and other researchers found that children and older people are also at risk of severe reactions, which could be life-threatening.

There is gear on the market to mitigate those risks, including sealed safety goggles and respirators (N-, P- or R-100). If you find yourself exposed to a chemical irritant like tear gas or pepper spray, Reynhout said there is nothing shown to be more effective than flushing the area for 10 to 15 minutes with saline solution.

The saline solution should ideally be sterile and at body temperature, he told LAist, but plain water also works if that is what you have available. The important thing is that you continue to flush the area and dilute the chemicals.

For skin or clothing, Reynhout said dilution with water is still the key, but you can use some Dawn dish soap to help wash away pepper spray.

Other dangers

California law enforcement officers have also used flash bang grenades in response to protests since June. The L.A. County Sheriff’s Department and California Highway Patrol together used more than 300 aerial flash bang grenades on June 8, according to AB 48 reports. Those are crowd control munitions shot out of 40mm launchers that explode mid-air and create 170 dB of sound and 5 million candelas of light.

LAist asked the LAPD about their policy on using flash bang grenades for crowd control, but the department did not respond. The LAPD has not listed any uses of flash bang grenades in their AB 48 reports dating back to April 2024.

Aside from these, there are a number of other crowd control weapons and devices that are used by law enforcement agencies in the L.A. area: grenades that explode to release small rubber balls, pepper balls, batons or — unique to the LAPD — officers on horseback using wooden practice swords called “bokken.”

Reynhout said deciding how much protection you might choose to take with you to a protest is very personal. Some bulkier items might restrict your movement, cause you to overheat or impede your ability to maintain situational awareness, so it is important to consider what risks you may face and use your best judgement.

Sometimes, he said, that best judgment might be to walk away from the situation.

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass laid out her vision for Los Angeles at her first of two "State of the City" addresses Monday afternoon at Exposition Park.

The speech, which comes as her race for re-election ramps up, was framed as a celebration of the coming World Cup.

"Let's show the nation and the world we are the greatest city on earth," Bass told the crowd outside the L.A. Memorial Coliseum.

But the mayor moved quickly from announcing that there would be more than 100 free watch parties for the tournament into a retrospective of L.A.'s terrible 2025 — from the January fires to the immigration agents that descended on the city in June and haven't left.

"Raids continue every day in Los Angeles and with them have come the devastating losses of life," she said, naming Renee Good, Alex Pretti and Keith Porter Jr., who was shot by an off-duty ICE agent in Los Angeles on New Year's Eve. " This senseless death, lawlessness and violence must end and so must the presence of ICE in Los Angeles."

Bass described local leaders as the last line of defense against the actions of the federal government.

L.A.’s fire recovery

She also discussed the ongoing recovery of Pacific Palisades, where she has faced substantial criticism for the city's response to the fire and first year of rebuilding, which some residents say has been too slow.

" We've brought in new leadership to overhaul fire preparedness and emergency response," Bass said, referencing her decision to remove former fire chief Kristin Crowley. "And yes, we're fighting the next battle: holding financial institutions and the insurance industry from abandoning Los Angeles because recovery should never feel harder than the disaster itself."

Bass said 400 homes lost to the fire are currently under construction, and that she would travel to Sacramento next week with Councilmember Traci Park and Pacific Palisades residents to push for more state funding for recovery. The Palisades Fire destroyed nearly 7,000 homes and killed 12 people.

The mayor's response to the Palisades Fire is a key issue in her race for re-election. Two of Bass's challengers, former LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner and influencer Spencer Pratt, had their homes damaged or destroyed in the disaster.

Housing and homelessness

Bass then laid out her efforts around housing and homelessness, pointing to an affordability crisis that makes staying in stable housing, or buying a first home, out of reach for many Angelenos.

"The greatest test of L.A. is whether people can actually afford to live here year across Los Angeles," the mayor said in her address. "Too many neighbors are packing multiple families into one apartment are working two and three jobs just to stay housed."

Bass lauded her first executive directive ordering city officials to fast-track the construction of developments that have entirely affordable housing units, which she said had "accelerated  more than 30,000 housing units across the city." She also celebrated the city's move to significantly lower rent hikes, in the first reform to rent control in 40 years.

Bass then turned to homelessness, doubling down on her commitment to her signature "Inside Safe" program, which aims to move people off the streets and into interim housing. She said that the city had cleared nearly 120 encampments.

Bass focused on the fight to end homelessness for veterans in Los Angeles — a focus she said was interrupted by the 2025 fires. She said the city had issued 600 housing vouchers for veterans since last year.

She ended the speech where she started — talking about the city's role as host of the World Cup and 2028 Olympic Games.

" We will continue to focus on the fundamentals, the things that shape how a city feels to the people who live here and the millions who will visit," she said.

Watch the replay

This is a developing story and will be updated.