With summer weather and wildfire season approaching, Washington employers will have new seasonal workplace safety rules to take into account. On June 1, 2022, the Washington State Department of Labor & Industries (L&I) adopted emergency rules that add to already existing protections for outdoor workers from the summer conditions of heat exposure and wildfire smoke. Both emergency rules take effect on June 15, 2022.
Under the existing rule, employers with outdoor workers are required to maintain outdoor heat-exposure prevention plans, provide annual heat-exposure training to employees and supervisors to prevent illness, and increase the amount of drinking water available to workers and opportunities to drink it. The existing rule is effective annually between May 1 and September 30.
Under the emergency amendments to the existing rule, Washington employers are required to take extra precautions, starting June 15, 2022, which include:
ensuring a “sufficient quantity of suitably cool drinking water is “readily accessible to employees at all times”;
providing access to shade or comparable opportunities to “reduce body temperature,” if at least equally effective to shade (which could include air-conditioned spaces or vehicles);
educating workers about the importance of preventative cool-down periods to protect against overheating and paying employees during those preventative periods;
when the temperature is 89 degrees Fahrenheit or higher:...
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