SALEM — After a record-setting heat wave that claimed the life of an Oregon farmworker, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown late Tuesday directed the state’s workplace safety agency to create temporary emergency rules to protect farmworkers from heat-related death and illness.

Brown directed Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Agency, or Oregon OSHA, to enact the rules this week “to ensure urgent protection for workers from extreme heat.”

The temporary rules will require employers to provide specific allotments of shade, rest time and cool water for workers during major heat events. Separately, Oregon OSHA has been working with stakeholders to craft a permanent set of heat- and wildfire smoke-related rules expected to be adopted this fall.

“No one should have to decide between their health and a paycheck,” said Brown. “All Oregonians should be able to go to work knowing that conditions will be safe and that they will return home to their families at the end of the day.”

Brown’s announcement comes after a Guatemalan immigrant farmworker, Sebastian Francisco Perez, died of what appeared to be heatstroke in 104-degree weather June 26 at Ernst Nursery and Farms in St. Paul.

Farmworker unions and interest groups have been pushing the state to adopt emergency heat stress rules for months, and the groups ramped up their advocacy after Perez’s death.

“I think this tragedy illustrates the need for emergency action,” Reyna Lopez Osuna, executive director of PCUN, the state’s largest union for farmworkers, said after Perez died in a field.

Lopez said she knew OSHA had already been working to craft permanent rules that would come out this fall, but with months of summertime to go and potentially more heat waves in store, she said that wasn’t soon enough.

Oregon OSHA has not yet shared details about the upcoming emergency heat stress rule expected within the week.

Farm groups, including the Oregon Farm Bureau, have asked for rules that are “clear and implementable.” Farmworker advocates have pressed for extensive restrictions, including a cap on how long employees can work in specific temperature thresholds. OSHA has not yet shared specifics about the rules it will issue. 

According to a document Aaron Corvin, Oregon OSHA spokesman, shared with the Capital Press, in terms of adoption, temporary rules follow a similar trajectory as permanent rules. The key differences are that temporary rules do not require a notice of proposed rulemaking or comment period and temporary rules only last 180 days once enacted.

According to a document Leah Andrews, spokeswoman for Oregon Department of Consumer and Business Services, shared with the Capital Press, the permanent rules expected this fall are being crafted by a group of more than 90 stakeholders, including representatives of agricultural, forestry, energy, environmental, farmworker, education and other organizations.