COUNCIL workers have been ordered to drop their shorts and wear long pants year round - even in searing summer temperatures.

Some staff are outraged by the decision to ban shorts, which the Cairns Regional Council says is to protect them from sun exposure.

"It’s going to make a hard job even harder," a council worker, who refused to be named fearing reprisal, told The Cairns Post.

"It’s already hot and it’s going to make it a hell of a lot hotter."

The worker said the already compulsory sun-safe shirts did not provide sun protection when wet and he feared the pants would be the same.

"Sometimes we sweat so much you can wring your shirt out with your hands and the tag says if it’s wet it doesn’t provide sun protection," he said.

During summer workers have to endure temperatures well into the 30s and high humidity.

The former Cairns City Council identified road workers, gardeners and ground maintenance staff as high risk to sun exposure and skin cancer.

Shorts will no longer be issued to staff from July 1, 2008, with workers to gradually begin wearing long pants until January 1, 2009 when wearing them will become compulsory.

Other council staffers who work outdoors said pants were incredibly hot and could be dangerous in some circumstances.

"I’ve been on jobs were people’s pants have been caught in saws," one of the men said.

Another said: "I guess it’s something we will just have to get used to but no one is going to like it."

Wearing dark sunglasses, broad brimmed hat, long sleeved shirt and council-supplied sunscreen, workers whipper snippering in the former Douglas Shire were unhappy, but resigned to donning long pants.

"In the summer months you work in the sun all day," one worker, who asked not to be named, said.

"It’s very hot and it’ll be even hotter if you're in long pants."

A Cairns Regional Council spokeswoman said more than half of the staff already wore long pants.

"Apart from the obvious sun-safe aspects of this, council also does contractual work for organisations such as the Department of Main Roads and Ergon and must abide by their policies during the undertaking of that work," she said.

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