C2 The BulleTin • Sunday, May 30, 2021
Oregon weighs new rules to protect workers
Climate change makes
wildfires, extreme heat
more prevalent
a certain threshold, employers
should be required to provide
N95s, provide ventilation. If
they can’t bring down the par-
ticulates in the air with a ven-
tilation system, then workers
shouldn’t be working. We’re
talking about human lives.”
BY JAMIE GOLDBERG
The Oregonian
As the Riverside fire raced
through Clackamas County
last September, Tammy Becke-
meyer arrived for the night shift
at the Fred Meyer distribution
center in Clackamas.
The facility was in a Level 2
evacuation zone and nearby
residents were preparing to
leave at a moment’s notice.
Smoke cascaded into the build-
ing through the dock doors as
Beckemeyer worked, stinging
her eyes and making it hard to
breathe.
Beckemeyer, the shop stew-
ard who serves as a union rep-
resentative, said Fred Meyer
offered employees KN95 masks
by request to help with the
smoke but still required them
to work long hours and meet
their usual hourly quotas. (A
Fred Meyer spokesperson said
the company offered breaks in
accordance with its union con-
tract and local and federal labor
laws.)
“Conditions were horrific,”
said Beckemeyer, 55. “They
look at us as essential employ-
ees, so they don’t give us extra
breaks, you’re timed on all your
assignments, and that time
doesn’t stop.”
Oregon, anticipating climate
change will make wildfire haze
and extreme heat more prev-
alent in the years ahead, is de-
veloping new rules to protect
workers from their effects. But
it is unlikely that any perma-
nent mandate will be in place
by this year’s fire season or its
hottest months.
Gov. Kate Brown directed the
Oregon Occupational Safety
and Health administration, or
Oregon OSHA, and the Oregon
Health Authority to develop a
proposal for standards to pro-
tect employees from excessive
heat and wildfire smoke back
in March 2020. It was part of a
broader executive order man-
dating that certain state agen-
cies engage in efforts to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions and
mitigate the impacts of climate
change.
Oregon OSHA and the Or-
egon Health Authority were
originally supposed to submit a
proposal for the new workplace
rules by next month, but the
state extended that deadline un-
til the end of September due to
the pandemic. The agencies are
now in the early phase of draft-
ing those rules.
Aaron Corvin, a spokesper-
son for Oregon OSHA, said
the agency might adopt a tem-
porary rule ahead of wildfire
season this summer to ensure
requirements are in place to
protect workers from smoke,
but he said it is unlikely the
state will adopt any temporary
rule regarding extreme heat be-
fore the summer.
Oregon OSHA will host lis-
tening sessions Thursday and
next Tuesday to give workers
the opportunity to share their
Jeff Manning/The Oregonian
The five-alarm Chehalem Mountain-Bald Peak fire spanned parts of
Washington and Yamhill County.
thoughts on the potential rules
and their own experiences
working in excessive heat and
amid wildfire smoke. They’ll
likely hear from workers and
their advocates that the rules
can’t come soon enough.
“Workers should not be in a
position of choosing between
their health and a paycheck,”
said Nora Apter, climate pro-
gram director at the Oregon
Environmental Council. “We’re
at the table to ensure that
doesn’t happen in the future.”
ations, but others kept workers
on the job, knowing any delay
could risk their harvest. While
some farmworkers were pro-
vided N95 masks, others said
their employers didn’t take ex-
tra precautions to protect work-
ers.
Fernando Gutierrez, who
oversees a farmworker outreach
and advocacy program at the
Oregon Employment Depart-
ment, told The Oregonian/Or-
egonLive last September that he
spoke to several women who
fell ill and vomited while work-
ing at a farm in Canby during
the wildfires. Those women
had not been provided respira-
tors by their employer.
A warehouse worker, whom
The Oregonian/OregonLive is
not naming because he feared
retaliation from his employer,
said he could see smoke and
ash in the air as he worked
downwind from the Holiday
Farm fire last September. He
said it was several days of haz-
ardous conditions before his
employer offered N95 masks.
Some workers developed
coughs due to the air quality,
he said.
The worker ultimately opted
to take several days off because
of a health condition. On his
third day at home, he said his
employer started to pressure
him to come back, prompting
him to seek a doctor’s note be-
cause he feared he might other-
wise lose his job.
“I would like to see some
common-sense safety rules and
stricter enforcement,” he said.
“When the air quality reaches
Wildfire smoke
The air quality in many parts
of Oregon reached hazardous
levels last September as wild-
fires raged throughout the state.
Air quality levels in some places
topped 500, the very highest
measurement, signifying an
immediate risk to public health.
In California, when the Air
Quality Index reaches an un-
healthy level of 151, employers
are required to either halt oper-
ations or provide workers with
particulate respirators, such as
N95 masks.
Oregon didn’t have a similar
mandate last year.
Instead, individual employ-
ers decided on their own how
to respond to the hazardous
conditions. While some sent
workers home, others told their
employees to remain on the job.
Complicating the situation was
the fact that N95 respirators
were in short supply due to the
coronavirus pandemic, leaving
many workers with few options
to protect themselves.
Some farmers paused oper-
MEMORIAL DAY
HONORING ALL
WHO SERVED
Please stay home, stay safe and save lives.
CALL NOW!
541-317-3544
127 SE Wilson, Bend
Extreme heat
Last year’s wildfires were ex-
traordinary in their scale and
impact, but farmworkers and
others who work outside rou-
tinely face a much more com-
mon hazard: a very hot day.
Ira Cuello-Martinez, climate
policy associate at PCUN, Ore-
gon’s largest farmworker union,
said he has heard stories from
workers who have had to duck
behind cars and trucks during
their breaks simply to access
shade during the hottest days of
the summer. In other cases, he
said workers have complained
that they haven’t been provided
breaks or water, even as tem-
peratures topped 90 degrees.
Cuello-Martinez said many
farmworkers wear layers, even
when it’s hot, to protect their
skin from the sun. Many are
also paid by how much they
pick, incentivizing them to
work quickly even in extreme
heat. That can put them at sig-
nificant risk for heat-related
illness.
Agricultural workers, fishers,
forestry workers and hunters
account for 20% of heat-related
deaths nationwide, according to
the Union of Concerned Scien-
tists, a nonprofit science advo-
cacy organization.
And the frequency of very
hot days is increasing in Or-
egon. Since 1940, the average
number of days exceeding 90
degrees has increased by over
eight days per year in Portland
and 21 days per year in Med-
ford, according to The Oregon
Climate Change Research Insti-
tute’s biennial report. Portland
set a record in 2018, when 31
days exceeded 90 degrees.
“There are some simple solu-
tions: providing canopies to
provide shade, giving workers
more breaks and space to cool
down,” Cuello-Martinez said.
“We understand harvesting
crops is time sensitive, but at
the same time, we can’t over-
work and exploit workers to get
the most productivity out of
them. It’s dangerous.”
Apter, of the Oregon Envi-
ronmental Council, said the
state at a minimum needs to
ensure that employers provide
access to drinkable water, shade
or cooling stations, regular
breaks and time to acclimate
to heat. She said those work-
ing during wildfires should be
provided with respirators and
the option to relocate to a safer
location.
She also wants the state to ap-
ply its rules to all workers and
require that employees and em-
ployers are trained on the signs
of heat strain and respiratory
distress. She said those train-
ings should be conducted in
multiple languages.
Oregon OSHA has published
early drafts of possible wildfire
and heat rules that focus on
training employers and em-
ployees, ensuring that work-
ers have access to shade and
drinkable water and making
sure employees have access to
respirators when air quality de-
teriorates.
Samantha Bayer, policy
counsel for the Oregon Farm
Bureau, which represents nearly
7,000 farmers and ranchers,
said the farm bureau supports
the state’s attempts to adopt
rules to guide employers during
wildfires and in extreme heat.
However, Bayer said the farm
bureau doesn’t want to see the
state adopt overly prescriptive
rules that would be difficult for
employers to implement, such
as mandating that respirators
are fit tested or requiring that
water provided to employees is
a specific temperature.
She said she would also be
concerned if the state adopted
requirements that employers
shut down operations in certain
conditions, or set too low of a
bar for air quality thresholds
before rules kick in. She said
she would like to see the state
provide assistance to help farm-
ers secure N95 masks and any
other equipment they would
need to provide workers.
“I think we definitely un-
derstand the need to have pa-
rameters for employees and
employers to follow when air
quality gets to a certain level
that makes it hazardous to work
outside or when temperatures
rise to a level that could pose
possible risks to employees,”
Bayer said. “But they need to be
achievable, which is something
we struggled with when OSHA
adopted COVID-19 rules.”
Meaningful enforcement
Kate Suisman, an attorney
and the campaigns coordina-
tor at the Northwest Workers’
Justice Project, said her orga-
nization has been pushing the
state to adopt rules to protect
workers from extreme heat for
years and is happy to see the
rulemaking process moving
forward.
Suisman, though, said many
workers are skeptical about
whether the rules will make a
meaningful difference.
Oregon OSHA only inspects
2.5% of workplaces in a typi-
cal year and can dismiss com-
plaints without visiting a work-
place, though the agency does
prioritize visiting high-risk
workplaces like farms.
Oregon also has a history of
handing out fines to employ-
ers who violate rules that are
significantly smaller than the
national average, according to
annual reports from the U.S.
Department of Labor.
Violations are often down-
graded on appeal, too. A total of
1,629 Oregon OSHA violations
were resolved through the ap-
peals process over the last three
years, with 43% amended on
appeal and 12% rescinded, ac-
cording to Oregon OSHA data.
“These rules are only step
one,” Suisman said. “They will
hopefully empower workers to
be able to tell their supervisors,
‘We have the right to these pro-
tections.’ But then there also has
to be meaningful enforcement.”