By Howard Fischer
Mail | Twitter: @azcapmedia

PHOENIX — With temperatures well into the triple digits, state inspectors are going to be out checking jobsites to ensure employers are protecting their workers against heat-related illness and injury.

A new program launched Monday will have the Arizona Department of Occupational Safety and Health using its overall powers to require safe workplaces to specifically ensure workers have “adequate” access to water, shade and rest. Inspectors also will check to see if employers have the training to recognize and treat heat stress and injury.

Strictly speaking, there is no formal rule about what is considered adequate.

But there already are regulations that require companies to provide their workers with a place of employment that is “free from recognized hazards.” And that means employers can still find themselves in legal trouble if inspectors determine employees are subject to conditions that the U.S. Department of Labor, which sets the standards for ADOSH to enforce, considers “heat-related hazards that are likely to cause death or serious harm.”

Agency spokesman Trevor Laky said there is no hard-and-fast rule of what employers need to do to ensure they are in compliance.

“When investigators go out there, they’ve got to do a comprehensive inspection on these things,” he said.
“They have to make sure that employers are providing water, rest, shade,” Laky said. “So it’s very cumulative. I can’t really identify one thing.”

And it varies from job to job.

Take home building where workers may be up on roofs.

“Obviously, putting shade on a roof, that’s perhaps unfeasible,” he said. “But we definitely want to see that if someone’s recuperating, especially if they’re exhibiting signs of heat stress, that they can do so in a shaded environment.”

But what it does not mean, Laky said, are state-specified rest periods for those working outside.

“Obviously, every work environment’s different,” he said. “And if the environment puts them in such a situation where they need rest or shade, then that’s definitely something they need to look into.”

Still, what’s being called the “State Emphasis Program” is designed to help employers ensure that there is shade available to workers during their rest periods.

Ditto water.

According to the plan, inspectors will look to see that companies are providing “an adequate supply of cool potable drinking water to workers throughout the day.” That means promoting water breaks as needed and educating workers on the importance of staying hydrated.

That goes to another part of what’s new. Laky said  employers are each going to have to develop — and implement — a written heat-stress program that addresses issues specific to the jobs being performed. That means not only dealing with water, rest and shade but also ensuring workers and their supervisors recognize the signs and symptoms of heat stress.

While the targets are companies whose employees work outdoors, he said the focus on protecting workers from heat are not limited to those firms. Laky said the same concerns and rules can apply to situations like those working in hot kitchens or employees in a warehouse where the air conditioning has failed.

What is significant about the new program, he said, is it goes beyond what the agency’s 33 inspectors normally do in ensuring safety rules are followed.

“This now opens up a new type of avenue that we can go and inspect heat-related conditions,” Laky said.

“Instead of having another reason to be there, they can target it just because it’s a high-heat working condition,” he explained. “That’s pretty big.”

Those inspections, Laky said, can be unannounced.

“If we see people working out in an agricultural field, we can go out there because they’re working in a high-heat condition,” he said.

One piece of the new program involves gathering data on what companies are doing.

“There might be rules that come afterwards regarding any sort of heat-stress standards,” Laky said. “But, as of now, we need to get as much information as possible.”

While ADOSH inspectors can cite employers after an inspection, the plan also includes the possibility of instead issuing a “letter of recommendation” of what the companies should do beyond water, shade and rest.

Some of it includes protective clothing and equipment, like hats for working in the sun.

But the plan also includes “acclimatization.”

For example, it suggests new workers begin with 20% of the normal workload and time spent in the sun, gradually increasing of a period of up to 14 days.

Screening also is important, with the program saying  conditions like pregnancy, fever, gastrointestinal illness, heart disease and obesity may increase the risk of heat-related illness. But documents produced by ADOSH warn that employers are not entitled to know whether workers have those conditions but only whether workers have any health conditions that limit their ability to perform their job duties.

The agency’s actions drew praise from Gov. Katie Hobbs.

“In the middle of a devastating heat wave, Arizona workers need relief,” she said in a prepared statement, calling this “a critical step in building an Arizona for everyone, where working people can go to their jobs every day knowing we have a plan to keep them safe.”