SACRAMENTO BEE

June 13, 2009

Stricter heat rules for outdoor workers considered

By Susan Ferriss

After discovering farm laborers in high heat with little or no training, water or shade, state job safety directors are urging emergency changes to California's heat-stress prevention regulations.

The state codes were hailed as pioneering – the first in the nation – when adopted in 2006. But changes are needed to "clarify" and improve them to prevent more deaths and injuries, according to statements this week from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and California Occupational Safety and Health officials.

"Since taking office," Schwarzenegger said, "I have worked to protect California's outdoor workers, and I will continue to improve and strengthen those standards to protect these men and women and help their employers better comply with California's standards."

Last year, the governor attended the funeral of a 17-year-old farmworker who died after collapsing in a vineyard in San Joaquin County. Three of Maria Vasquez Jimenez's supervisors face involuntary manslaughter charges because of alleged failure to follow heat-stress codes.

Two other farmworkers, one oil worker and one construction laborer also died of confirmed heat exposure last year. Seven other deaths were investigated, and more than 60 injuries were reported.

This May, Cal-OSHA inspectors shut down eight farm employers because of heat safety violations.

Cal-OSHA's proposed changes to heat-stress prevention codes will be heard June 18 in Oakland at a meeting of the Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board. The board could vote on them that day because they are emergency measures.

Bryan Little, labor affairs director of the California Farm Bureau, said the changes seem good ideas, but it may be hard to inform employers of them in time for the summer season.

The bureau has conducted voluntary heat-safety training for dozens of farm supervisors. "Now do we retrain them?" Little said.

Labor advocates also agree with some changes, such as a requirement that workers use a "buddy" system and be included in a communications network – voice or electronic – when heat hits 95 degrees.

But advocates argue that the codes remain inadequate because they do not order extra breaks for workers in scorching temperatures. The U.S. Army uses this measure to protect troop health, they note.

Cal-OSHA wants a change that says supervisors should "encourage" workers to take extra breaks.

Anne Katten, an industrial hygienist with the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation, said it's not enough to "encourage" farmworkers to ask for breaks. Many earn piece-rate wages, and they lose them when they pause, she said.

Katten also said she objects to language that declares vines in fields can be used as sources of mandatory shade if they provide full shade.

"Workers should not have to hunch down under vines to get shade," she said.