Washington farmworkers must have shade handy and more rest breaks when the temperature reaches triple digits under emergency rules announced July 11 by the Department of Labor and Industries.

The rules, effective July 13, respond to a petition from the United Farm Workers. They will apply to construction and other outdoor workers as well and add to existing heat-stress workplace regulations.

The emergency rules came less than two weeks after a record-shattering heat wave across the state. L&I said it modeled them after California regulations and will write a permanent rule for next summer.

Gov. Jay Inslee said the heat reached “catastrophic levels,” endangering workers. “Our state has rules in place to ensure those risks are mitigated, however, the real impacts of climate change have changed conditions since those rules were first written and we are responding,” Inslee said in a statement.

An Oregon farmworker died of heat-related causes June 26. No deaths or illnesses among farmworkers were reported in Washington, an L&I spokeswoman said Friday.

According to the emergency rules, employers must provide shade “as close as practicable” to workers or some other way of cooling down when temperatures are 100 or above.

L&I suggested fans, misters and air conditioners as alternatives to shade.

Also, in triple-digit heat, farmworkers must have 10-minute paid rest breaks every two hours.

“I am very glad to see the shade protection and preventive paid breaks included,” UFW campaign director Elizabeth Strater said.

She criticized the rule, however, for setting the threshold at 100 degrees.

“A worker in 99.5 degree heat without shade is a worker in very dangerous working conditions,” she said. “I look forward to permanent rule-making that includes medical and public health perspectives.”

Agricultural employers already are required to provide water, train workers to avoid heat illnesses and make sure workers suffering in the heat get care.

Republican state Sen. Mark Schoesler, a Ritzville wheat farmer, said he didn’t think the Inslee administration needed to add to the rules.

Farmers adjusted to the heat by starting earlier and quitting for the day sooner, he said.

“Of course, we adapted to it,” Schoesler said. “Government assumes our farmworkers aren’t smart enough to drink water.

“If you treat workers poorly you won’t have a crew,” he said. “If I treated my men poorly, they might all quit and then I’d have a real problem.”

Washington State Tree Fruit Association President Jon DeVaney also questioned the need for the emergency rules. The intense heat, he said, “was not something employers were unprepared to respond to.”

DeVaney said orchardists should be able to adjust to the rules. Trees make shade readily available and orchard work is curtailed in extreme heat anyway, he said.

“We in agriculture are used to being flexible and adjusting plans very quickly, and we’ll deal with this one, too,” he said.

Washington Growers League executive director Mike Gempler said the emergency rules added specifics to the long-standing heat regulations.

“It’s just what you have to do to get people cooled down because we don’t want people to get sun stroke,” Gempler said. “The alternative is that when you reach a certain temperature, you just can’t work anymore.”