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Oregon employers must provide respirators for work in smoky air under new rules

A sprinkler waters a field amidst wildfire smoke in Aumsville on Tuesday, September 8. (Amanda Loman/Salem Reporter)

Oregon’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration moved on Monday to employ new rules aimed at protecting workers against two pressing effects of climate change: heat and wildfire smoke.

Farmworker unions and advocacy groups have long pushed for such protections as Oregon summers have grown hotter and smokier in recent years. Currently, Marion and Polk counties have about 16,600 farm workers as of July according to Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste, Oregon’s Woodburn-based farmworker union.

In terms of wildfire protection, employers will have to provide facepiece respirators for workers as well as training on how to properly wear them when the air index quality reaches or exceeds a measurement of 101, meaning air is unhealthy for sensitive groups. 

Employers will also be required to provide training on the potential health effects of wildfire smoke, symptoms of exposure, how to operate air quality monitoring devices, emergency response procedures and the employee’s right to report health issues and to obtain medical treatment without concern of retaliation. 

OSHA’s announcement included guidance that mandated whenever feasible, employers must use administrative and engineering controls to combat the impact of wildfire smoke such as relocating workers to another outdoor location with better air quality or changing work schedules.

To protect workers against heat-related dangers, employers must provide cooling areas in provided housing. If the room where people sleep is unable to maintain a temperature of 78 degrees or less, employers must provide an area for those individuals to cool off. Those areas must be able to accommodate at least 50% of the occupants at a time. 

Direct sunlight into rooms must also be taken into consideration and no-cost fans and thermometers must be provided. 

Both new rules go into effect August 9 and remain in effect for 180 days. 

“These rules underscore our ongoing work to bolster Oregon’s ability to protect workers from extraordinary hazards that have been exacerbated by climate change,” said Andrew Stolfi, director of the Oregon Department of Consumer and Business Services, which includes Oregon OSHA. “Wildfire smoke and extreme heat continue to pose threats to our communities. Those threats are not going away. And that is why we must act.”

According to Oregon OSHA, the rules reflect input from labor and employer stakeholders and come after last fall’s wildfires that ripped through Oregon and a heat-related death of a farm worker in St. Paul.

Emergency heat rules were put in place following 38-year-old Sebastian Francisco Perez’s death in June including a requirement for employers to provide shade, cold water and periods of rest for workers.

-Caitlyn May