PORTLAND Ore. (KPTV) – Oregon farm workers may be looking forward to better living conditions, but it’ll come at a cost that some farmers say they’re not prepared to pay.
The Oregon Occupational Health and Safety Division (OSHA) released new housing rules last Wednesday for those who live and work on Oregon farms.
The dozens of rules include expanding the number of square feet per bed in sleeping rooms from 40 square feet to 50 square feet, maintaining lower indoor temperatures than before during extreme heat, providing locking shower stalls, solid doors for toilets, protected food storage, enclosed kitchens, one electrical outlet per occupant, and more.
Implementing those rules could cost a pretty penny for some farmers, even those who are already in compliance with many of the rules.
That includes Devon Wells, the owner of Walter Wells and Sons Farm in Hood River, a 5th generation farm where his family has worked for 120 years.
Wells said that in their current facilities, they can house up to 55 farm workers at any given time, who assist them in harvesting fruit ranging from pears to peaches.
“We’re a family-based operation, we love our employees,” Wells said.
Under the new rules, they would need to pay between $100,000 and $150,000 over the next couple of years to bring their space up to code.
The new rule about square footage per bed would also mean they would not be able to house as many employees on-site, and many of them would likely seek employment elsewhere, in order to be guaranteed a place to live.
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“We’ll probably lose our ability to house about a third of our employees,” Wells said. “When you start talking about taking away crews of people picking cherries and peaches and apples, you start having crop damage, your crop starts getting picked too late, it’s soft, it can’t be marketed, there’s decreased revenues…it’s just going to make it a whole lot more agonizing and difficult.”
Aaron Corvin, the Public Information Officer with Oregon OSHA, said that over the last six years, they have received at least 260 public comments and worked with farmers extensively to form these new rules.
“We’ve worked really hard to be inclusive with this rule,” Corvin said in a phone interview with FOX 12. “We’ve built the rule in a way that provides sleeping protections, improved worker protections, but also recognizes that we want employers to be successful.”
He said the bigger picture is that workers in Oregon have a right to a safe and healthy workplace, and these standards will help accomplish that goal.
“Just because something is challenging doesn’t mean we should not do it,” Corvin said. “We really believe that this is going to provide substantial protections for workers and their families.”
The Oregon Department of Agriculture is offering $5 million in grant funds to farmers across the state who need to bring their properties up to code, but Wells said that number just won’t cut it.
“It’s nowhere near enough money. It’s $5 million for the entire state of Oregon,” he said. “That’s not going to even touch it. I’m afraid a lot of farmers won’t even put in for the application.”
He says while he did offer his input into the rules, he felt the concern from OSHA dropped off in recent months, and the concerns for agriculture as a whole were placed on a back burner.
“We don’t want our workers to get hurt, we don’t want that kind of stuff to happen on our farm, it costs way too much money, it’s bad for families,” Wells said. “Just listen to us, just work with us, pay attention to us.”
Oregon OSHA set up staggered dates for each requirement over the next few years to allow farmers time to adjust.
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