A tale of two workers

In a historic heatwave that covered the Pacific Northwest in June 2021, two workers died.

Sebastian Francisco Perez, a 38-year-old Guatemalan immigrant, collapsed in 100-degree heat while moving irrigation lines outside at a farm and nursery in St. Paul, Ore. Just 500 miles away, a few days later, Ian Booth, a 33-year-old Idahoan working on a landscaping crew near Lewiston, died of cardiac arrest from heat exposure.

Perez’s death in Oregon provoked quick action from Oregon’s governor and lawmakers, who implemented stricter rules for employers during extreme heat, including requirements for frequent breaks, and allocated state money to a relief fund for employees who miss work because of heat illnesses or smoke.

Since then, heat-related worker deaths in the state have gone down dramatically.

The reaction to Booth’s death in Idaho was much different, reflecting political resistance in some red states to enacting regulations to protect workers as summers get hotter, leaving them without strong state or federal protections.

Booth’s family raised just over $4,500 and quietly buried him. An obituary appeared in the local newspaper, the Lewiston Tribune, but aside from loving comments on his family members’ Facebook pages, Booth’s death got little public attention — and no action from local lawmakers.

For years, as summer temperatures have risen to record levels in the West, worker advocates have called for increased protections for people who work outside. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that from 1992 to 2022, heat killed an average of 34 workers each year. Latino workers and other people of color are far more likely to suffer heat-related deaths and illnesses on the job. Some states like California, Oregon and Washington have passed strict protections for workers in high temperatures that go beyond federal standards. But Idaho, which has over 100,000 agriculture and construction workers and produces over $10.8 billion worth of agricultural products each year, hasn’t.

Globally, this summer brought the highest recorded temperatures in history for two straight days. Idaho reached at least 105 degrees on a record nine days this summer. Oregon saw a record five days of triple-digit temperatures, and parts of Washington hit 93 or higher, breaking prior heat records.

In Oregon, which has over 150,000 agricultural workers and over 123,000 construction workers, 10 people died from presumed heat-related illnesses in July’s heat wave, according to Oregon Public Broadcasting. Seven people died in Washington, and five in Idaho. Idaho is expected to continue to see high temperatures in the 90s throughout August.

The Occupational Safety and Health Division, the federal agency that enforces workplace safety standards for private employees, requires only that employers “should” provide protections against extreme heat. But workers and their advocates in Idaho said employers often do not provide sufficient protections during heat waves, and that employees are often untrained in the dangers of extreme heat and left to their own devices to protect themselves.

Idaho isn’t the only state that has not adopted its own stricter heat regulations. Lawmakers in Texas and Florida have passed laws expressly banning additional heat protections, over concerns that the regulations would harm businesses.

Sen. Jim Guthrie, a Republican lawmaker in the Idaho Legislature, said he would be open to hearing a debate about a bill adding worker protections if one were proposed, but lawmakers need to balance the costs of providing extra protections against the benefits.

“It’s just one of those things that you don’t want it to be a policy that just has a feel-good element to it,” he said in a phone interview. “You don’t want it to be a policy that’s so restrictive that it really compromises production in the workplace and unfairly tips the scales, to an unreasonable point, with protection of workers.”

Without requirements for employers to provide workers with resources to stay cool during 100-degree temperatures, many rely on the few volunteers who visit work sites and workers’ homes to distribute water, sports drinks, hats and other supplies. Alejandra Hernandez is one of those volunteers; she lives in Mountain Home, Idaho, where many of her family members work in the fields and help connect her to workers in need.

Hernandez said many workers this summer had not received training about how to prevent heat-related illnesses.

“They aren’t taught what to do in case of a heat stroke, or how you can protect yourself from the smoke or things like that,” she said.

‘No excuses’

Despite another historic heatwave this summer, June 28, 2021, remains the Portland-area’s hottest recorded day. It was just two days after Perez died on June 26, when temperatures reached 104 degrees.

Perez arrived in the U.S. from Guatemala less than a month before for his nursery job. He was saving money and sending it home to his wife for her to eventually undergo fertility treatment, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported. But Perez was never able to become a father.

In an interview with InvestigateWest, former Oregon Gov. Kate Brown said Perez’s death horrified her and inspired her to quickly issue an executive order directing the Oregon OSHA division to expand the federal requirements for employers with outside workers.

“Certainly rulemaking processes require time and thought and input, but honestly, when we’re talking about workers, hard workers, people who are gathering or preparing the fields to ensure that we have food on our kitchen tables,” she said. “There should be no excuses.”

Oregon’s extreme heat regulations require mandatory breaks of at least 10 minutes every two hours when the heat index is 90 degrees or greater and the break time increases in length and frequency as the area heat index increases. When the heat index is 105 or greater, workers must take a 40-minute break every hour. Unless it coincides with an unpaid lunch break, the heat breaks are paid. The heat index accounts for how hot it feels outside by calculating both air temperature and humidity.

Oregon also requires employers to provide access to immediate shade and access to 32 ounces of water per hour for each employee when the heat index hits 80 degrees or more. Employers also must educate workers on a heat illness prevention plan that includes recognizing symptoms of heat-related illnesses and how to prevent them.

Oregon’s rules also require employers to provide their workers with N-95 face masks when the air quality index shows moderate levels of danger, or a reading of 101. With fires burning throughout the state, Oregon has been under an air quality alert that encourages residents to avoid strenuous outdoor activity and those who are vulnerable to stay inside. Idaho is experiencing similar poor air quality, with the index showing levels between 152 and 187, according to the Idaho Statesman. People working outside for long periods of time are vulnerable to the impacts of smoke, which can be eye irritation and respiratory damage.

Aaron Corvin, Oregon OSHA spokesperson, said he couldn’t comment on whether rules such as Oregon’s may have saved Booth, who was working in neighboring Idaho. Booth died on June 23, 2021; he was a parent to two children, whom he was raising with his high school sweetheart. On the day of his death, he was cutting branches away from a power line in Lewiston. The outside temperature was 100 degrees, according to the Nez Perce County coroner, and his body temperature was 104 degrees.

David Kearns, director of the federal OSHA office for the Boise area, said in an email that investigators found that Booth’s employer, Asplundh Tree Expert, had a heat illness prevention plan that included providing breaks in the shade and water.

Allison Morris, a spokesperson for Asplundh, said in an email that the company was “deeply saddened” by Booth’s death. She said the company cooperated with the OSHA investigation, which found no violations of the hazardous workplace rules.

Morris said Asplundh’s safety measures include providing workers with water and requiring all workers to participate in training about what to do when someone is feeling unwell in the heat.

Nez Perce County Coroner Joshua Hall spoke to Booth’s co-workers the day he died, and wrote in his report that they said Booth had been working out in the sun all day. Hall wrote that the crew had taken a long lunch break, and they believed Booth drank almost a gallon of water. But later, his co-worker noticed Booth was looking off into the distance and talking to himself. They said he grabbed his water bottle but was unable to drink from it because his hands were shaking.

Hall reported that an emergency management team said Booth’s skin was hot to the touch and he was sweating profusely.

‘Some care, some don’t’

Idaho relies on OSHA rules that require an employer to keep the workplace free from anything that is causing or is likely to cause death or serious physical harm. OSHA regulations also say employers “should create plans to protect workers from developing heat-related illnesses,” but it does not require them.

Federal sanitation standards require employers to provide workers with potable drinking water.

Irene Ruiz, executive director of the Idaho Organization of Resource Councils, said the organization spoke to 14 farmworkers in the last two years about their experiences during extreme heat. She said they told her they were not getting frequent breaks to cool off and get water, as suggested by OSHA.

“A lot of them feel like they have to be the ones to supply their own water and protective equipment from the heat,” Ruiz said.

She said the farmworkers she spoke to are also not provided shaded areas for their breaks and rely on opening the backs of their cars for any sort of reprieve from the heat and sun.

“There are some (employers) who care, and some that don’t,” Ruiz said. “That’s just the reality of it. We’re just hearing that they’re just not getting the breaks that they need to cool off.”

After 27 years with the Idaho OSHA office, Kearns said he believes most employers are well-intentioned and don’t want their workers to get sick. But he also knows it is easy to forget about or ignore the heat.

“Sometimes you don’t know what you don’t know,” Kearns said. “And there may be a little complacency among many of us to say, ‘It’s just heat, get out there, sweat it out’ and ‘Don’t be afraid.’”

Idaho Gov. Brad Little declined an interview request from InvestigateWest for this story.

In a statement, spokesperson Madison Hardy said, “the Idaho Department of Labor commits substantial resources to reinforce the federal protections for farmworkers. The Governor’s Office will ensure the State of Idaho continues to work closely with local employers, farmers, and farmworkers in providing education, fielding complaints, and conducting inspections related to federal heat-related safety standards.”

Hernandez and other farmworker advocates are often the first to educate workers on how to spot symptoms of heat stroke and other heat-related illnesses. They say that many farmworkers don’t want to ask for a break and are even fearful to request too much on the job.

AnaMaria Morales, a volunteer with the Idaho Immigrant Resource Alliance, which operates under the Idaho Organization of Resource Councils who distributes items to farmworkers in Canyon County, said many workers don’t get any breaks.

Morales visits fields with coolers full of sports drinks and water bottles.

“A lot of these workers, they’re not able to bring a water bottle with them when they’re working on their field rows,” she said. “They have to either wait until they’re finished with their row, or until they’re finished working the whole entire field before they can go and get water.”

‘Few and far between’

In the summer of 2021, Oregon saw 109 heat-related deaths, according to a report from the Oregon Health Authority. Between May and August of that year, the state had a 242% increase in heat-related visits to emergency and urgent care departments over the same period in 2020, the report said.

Since Brown’s executive order and the subsequent permanent OSHA rules, heat-related deaths in Oregon have decreased. In 2022, just 22 people died from heat. In 2023 eight people died, despite many 100-degree days and increasing average temperatures in the state.

Brown said she is confident the new OSHA rules have saved people’s lives.

“I think that work we did is a model for the country,” she said.

Idaho saw 11 heat-related deaths in 2021 and so far in this summer five people have died from heat related illnesses, the same number as in 2023. The number of heat-related deaths in Idaho are lower than Oregon, where there are more than double the number of agricultural and construction workers.

Five states have adopted their own specific heat-protection laws: Washington, Minnesota, California, Oregon and Colorado.

States can choose to create their own individual OSHA plans to pass laws to protect outside workers from heat-related illnesses or other hazards. To do so, a state must write and pass legislation that is at least as effective as the OSHA federal rules. The state must also fund half of the state plan and ask the federal government for the other half.

A state plan must also cover federal employees, while OSHA federal rules only apply to private sector workers.

State plans allow states to target other issues facing workers. For example, California’s plan protects workers from lead exposure at work and from workplace violence, and New York’s plan requires emergency escape and self-rescue ropes and system components for firefighters, among other workplace requirements.

Kearns, the federal OSHA official for the Boise area, said there are a lot of factors that may prevent a state from adopting its own stricter rules for employers.

“I can’t tell you what (states are) thinking and what’s happening in the political climate and budgetary climate of each of those states,” he said. “But I think it’s pretty obvious that cost would be a potential factor.”

Guthrie said he doesn’t see Idaho lawmakers taking up the issue.

“In a conservative state like Idaho, I don’t see an issue like that getting traction,” he said. “It would really have to thread the needle (between business and worker interests).”

Guthrie also wondered if there would be enough enforcement of the rules to give the policy “teeth.” In Oregon, Brown agreed that rules are only worthwhile if enforcement is good. In Idaho, there are just nine OSHA investigators to cover every employer in the state.

“If I get a group of (employers) wanting to do the right thing, for the right reasons, I usually try to ask them to do their part and to be leaders, because we are few and far between,” Kearns said.

Since September 2020, the Region 10 OSHA office, which covers Alaska, Washington, Oregon and Idaho, received just six complaints from employees related to extreme heat in their workplaces. OSHA did not issue any fines for wrongdoing in any of the six cases.

Worker advocates say it is rare for many workers, especially undocumented workers, to submit formal complaints against their employers because of fear of retaliation or of being seen as not wanting to work. Idaho workers may still be able to hold out hope for greater protections against extreme heat. President Joe Biden in July proposed a new federal OSHA rule that would require employers to develop an injury and illness prevention plan for workplaces affected by excessive heat. The plan would implement requirements for mandatory rest breaks in extreme heat.

However, the rule isn’t expected to go into effect until 2026. An unofficial version of the rule was published online, and an official version is awaiting publication in the Federal Register, which contains new and amended versions of federal regulations. OSHA also must accept public comments on the rule before finalizing it.

The Washington Post reported that the upcoming presidential election could also change the course of the federal rules. If Donald Trump is elected, the Post said, it is likely that the rulemaking would stall.

InvestigateWest (invw.org) is an independent news nonprofit dedicated to investigative journalism in the Pacific Northwest. Spacek can be reached at rachel@invw.org.