SALEM â New rules to protect workers laboring in excessive heat were enacted on Thursday, July 8, but some groups worry they wonât be enforced rigorously enough to prevent future deaths.
Gov. Kate Brown directed the Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Administration to enact temporary rules, which include ensuring workersâ access to shade and cool drinking water when temperatures reach or exceed 80 degrees Fahrenheit. When temperatures rise above 90 degrees Fahrenheit, employers must also provide extra breaks or a cool-down period.
This response to calls for emergency rules to protect workers laboring outdoors followed a farmworkerâs death on a farm north of Salem on June 26. Sebastian Francisco Perez, 38, was moving irrigation lines on Ernst Nursery & Farms in St. Paul.
This response to calls for emergency rules to protect workers laboring outdoors followed a farmworker’s death on a farm north of Salem on June 26. Sebastian Francisco Perez, 38, was moving irrigation lines on Ernst Nursery & Farms in St. Paul.
In a press release statement, advocacy groups PCUN, Renew Oregon, Northwest Justice Workers Project, and Oregon Environmental Council, said they will continue to inform workers of their workplace rights and push for permanent protections.
It’s crucial that we continue to take steps towards long term policy shifts in our state, that take climate change, and workers safety seriously,” PCUN Executive Director Reyna Lopez said. “That means creating standards that keep people safe, while engaging stakeholders in climate policy that will allow our communities to be healthy, and thrive in the long term.”