Washington farms and food processors must enforce social distancing, frequent hand washing and possibly rearrange tasks to keep workers from catching and spreading the coronavirus, according to the Department of Labor and Industries.

L&I released late Thursday the requirements, indicating what the department expects agricultural employers do to meet their general duty to keep workplaces safe.

“We didn’t write any new rules,” L&I spokesman Frank Ameduri said. “We wanted to clarify that these are the things you have to do.”

Washington’s stay-home order exempts agriculture, but even essential businesses are prohibited from operating unless they take social-distancing and sanitation measures, according to the order.

Ameduri said L&I plans to soon have separate guidance for preventing and containing the coronavirus in farmworker housing.

The L&I fact sheet released Thursday includes suggestions on how farms and food processors can implement social distancing and other requirements.

“The nice thing is L&I is recognizing there are multiple ways to get to the same problem,” Washington Tree Fruit Association President Jon DeVaney said. “I think the approach they’re taking is enforceable and provides some flexibility for producers.”

The measures will cost growers money, he said. “To add additional costs is a challenge, but they’ll do it.” 

The United Farm Workers and another farmworker union, Familias Unidas por la Justicia, filed a petition Thursday in Skagit County Superior Court, seeking to force L&I to write separate coronavirus safety rules.

UFW National Vice President Erik Nicholson said L&I’s guidance was a “step forward,” but that the department should adopt separate rules for the workplace and for housing to give growers and workers firmer standards to ensure a healthy workforce.

“We’ve got to pull together because we’re in the middle of a pandemic,” he said.

DeVaney said growers won’t know whether they will be able to house the same number of workers until L&I issues guidance.

“It matters a lot how quickly we get clarification on some of these issues,” he said.

L&I categorized the requirements for farms and food processors in five categories:

• Implement a social-distancing plan. If workers can’t be kept 6 feet apart, they should be separated by barriers, wear commercially produced face masks or be protected by negative pressure ventilation. Employers may have to stagger shifts, slow production and have “physical-distance monitors.”

• Ensure adequate and frequent hand washing. The department will require portable hand-washing stations in fields and suggested more flexible breaks so everyone has time to wash their hands.

• Regularly clean and sanitize commonly touched surfaces. Surfaces should be cleaned with bleach or other disinfectants approved by the Environmental Protection Agency. The interior of a company vehicle must be sanitized before another person uses it.

• Sick employees must stay home or be isolated. Farms and food processors will have to immediately shutdown and clean places where an infected employee worked. The department suggests telling workers the “old workplace culture of powering through illness is not appropriate.”

• Workers must be taught how to prevent spreading the coronavirus. The education must include learning the symptoms and the importance of washing hands, covering coughs and sneezes, and not touching eyes, noses, or mouths with unwashed hands or gloves.