YAKIMA HERALD- REPUBLICApril 20, 2006
State tells employers to set up rules for working in heat
Washington employers will have to develop an "effective plan" for guarding their workers from heat-related illnesses while they are outside this summer, the state's labor safety agency announced Wednesday. The state Department of Labor and Industries declared the new emergency rule after stepping back from a much more specific advance proposal, which had come under heavy fire from industry groups but was supported by farm-worker advocates. The Washington State Horticultural Association, joined by the Building Industry Association of Washington, had blasted the early drafts of that rule as unnecessary and overly expensive. Jim Hazen, the Hort Association's executive director in Wenatchee, said the relative handful of heat-related injury claims over the past decade indicated that employers were managing the issue. "The numbers did not justify a wholesale rewrite of the rules. What really needed to be done was a simple fix," Hazen said. The United Farm Workers of America union, on the other hand, said the lack of detail in the current change gave workers no guidance to determine whether employers were acting appropriately. Erik Nicholson, the UFW's regional director, said he believed that the state bowed to politics. "It wasn't about protecting farm workers," Nicholson said. "Who can be against shade and who can be against cold water? — because that's all the other bill would have called for." The UFW started pushing for improvements after last summer's death of a Moxee farm worker was blamed on heat stroke. Nicholson said the union would continue its campaign urging consumers from across the nation to protest Labor and Industries' position. State officials said that the emergency rule, which goes into effect on June 1 and lasts for 120 days, reaffirms the need for employers to manage issues related to heat stroke and stress. Employers will be required to develop a heat-management plan that is "effective in practice," said agency spokesman Elaine Fischer. The agency also will step up related education efforts.
|