Washington law helps outdoor workers beat heat

Dan Fink, an emergency responder for Puget Sound Energy, took a break from repairing a gas meter recently in downtown Seattle to wipe the sweat off his brow and take a long swig from an ice-cold sports drink.

"It gets hot, it gets hot," he said. "I'm hot right now!"

Starting today, employers in Washington are required by law to provide outdoor workers such as Fink lots of water and training to prevent heat-related illness during the summer months.

The new heat rules, implemented by the state Department of Labor and Industries, were prompted by the deaths of three outdoor workers from heat exhaustion in the state in the past three years.

The measures, which will mainly affect farm and construction sites, are expected to protect outdoor workers from the risks of heat-related illness as temperatures rise throughout the state. Still, some farmers and other employers see the new rules as pesky bureaucratic hurdles that will take a toll on small-business owners.

Derek Webb, a commercial carpenter in Seattle who often works outside, welcomed the new rules.

"We recently had a guy not drink enough water. He spent the whole night throwing up," Webb said.

To be in compliance, employers with outdoor workers must be trained to recognize and respond to heat-related illness. They also will be expected to provide employees with more water in hot weather and training on the dangers of heat exhaustion.

"If you recognize the symptoms, you can take steps right away to cool off because it can escalate very quickly to heatstroke," said Elaine Fischer, a spokeswoman at Labor and Industries. "It's very tragic when it happens, and it happens very fast."

The deaths that prompted the new rules included a farmworker in Moxee City, Yakima County, who died in 2005, and a construction worker in Skamania County who died in 2006. In addition, a roofer in Vancouver, Clark County, suffered heatstroke in 2004, causing liver damage so severe it eventually killed him in 2006.

The state temporarily implemented similar worker-protection rules the past two summers. The requirements for employers were tweaked after a series of public hearings.

Still, the rules — which will affect roughly a quarter of the state's employers — have been met with opposition by some state politicians and business owners.

State Sen. Mark Schoesler, R-Ritzville, Adams County, who represents an agricultural district, has come out against the measures, saying they will hurt small-scale farmers and other small-business owners across the state.

"This assumes that employers have a plantation mentality," Schoesler said, while taking a break from spraying weeds on his wheat farm. "When you try to legislate common sense, you get some really absurd and impractical rules."

Fischer said regulatory action against employers who don't follow the new rules could range from a citation requiring compliance to a fine.

Robert Faturechi: 206-464-2393 or rfaturechi@seattletimes.com