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Alright shade,
remember here shade
surfaces and air, that's the general idea.
So as we go through this regulation
when we talk about
cooling
it talks about shade.
Let me ask you are there other ways to cool people off other than just shade?
Misting,
air-conditioned vehicle,
cold towel, yeah moist towels are great there's those bandanas
that stay cool for quite a while, you soak 'em in cool water and stay
cool that getting State Fund had given those away in years
gone by,
but there's a lot of ways to cool people off some employers have come up with
little cooling kits.
So if an employee starts the feel ill they start to fill some of these
symptoms of
heat illness, maybe there dizzy A little bit nauseous they have a headache
sort of initial symptoms
it's uh...
they can get into some shade but then they also have this cooling kit,
with a spray bottle uh... you know cool moist towels, so there are other
ways that aren’t prescribed in this regulation, in addition to the shade
how you could cool people off.
Okay, so think about cooling measures in general,
from a best practice standpoint.
But this regulation that we go through here it's going to talk just about
shade.
So have
and maintain one or more areas of shade at all times when employees are present.
Okay and that shade has to be up
when the temperature exceeds eighty five.
So does the shade need to be up today In Bakersfield?
what's the predicted high temperature for Bakersfield today?
Eighty-one?
That’s what I heard for Fresno today eighty one.
What if the weatherman wasn't right,
what if all of a sudden
and uh... two o'clock this afternoon you're out there working and it's eighty
six?
Would the shade have to be up?
Has to be up!
So even though the weather man said it's gonna be eighty-one, weather
man's not always right.
You know you have to keep your eye on that so there's a couple ways of dealing with
this eighty five degree,
above eighty five degrees trigger,
and one way is to check the weather report. I think we all do that we all have 0:02:39.009,0:02:41.890 our smart phones or our laptops
at our computers we listen to the news we watch the TV there are
all these ways
to sort of follow the weather
and we just do it.
So, if you hear on the radio or your news source it's going to
over eighty five
you can set the shade up at the beginning of the day
or your other option is the monitor
the weather
until it exceeds eighty five and then thats your trigger shade goes up.
So it's up to you how you want to deal with that but the shade
does have to be up with an inspector comes and temperature exceeds eighty five.
Locate the shade as close as practical where employees are working.
Water is as close as practical, shade as close as practical.
Let me just mention as close as practical,
what is that? What does that mean?
What that means is if a Cal/OSHA inspector comes up
and says
well you put the shade at this particular spot
why didn't you put it
you know
twenty yards over here closer to your employees? You better be able to defend
yourself for what you're considering to be as close as practical,
and there may be a good reason why you can't put it there i know for instance in
agriculture
there are some food safety laws
that prevent
...some prevent uh... for the organic step, preventing containers being
taken into the fields.
How close you can have the
shade structure
if there's no natural shade there adjacent?
A natural shade structure, how close you can have it so,
there some of these issues but you better be able to defend yourself for
what's close practical
for what your situation is.
You know also regarding shade,
there maybe instances and there has been when Cal/OSHA
you know inspected cases where people have gotten sick,
where lets say i'm starting to feel heat illness
and i'm dizzy, I’m nauseous, I have a headache
and i just
boom, just plop myself down
down on the ground cuz im so dizzy i think i'm gonna fall over
so i'm sitting there
and someone recognizes that i have symptoms of heat illness.
Now the shade structure, if this is a row crop situation where there's
no natural shape there
i can't get over that shade structure that i can't walk
i'm already feeling too sick
to be able to walk over there.
So, sometimes you're gonna have to kind of thinking outside the box you may have
to get to that person
to respond to them from a first aid standpoint.
So, a lot of people are actually keeping a large umbrella out there
where there's no natural shade
and they would be able to respond to somebody who falls ill,
that's an option.
But you have to think about this you may not be able
to get that person to the shade, they may be so sick so quick,
that you have to respond to them.
We're trying to get them into the shade in trying to cool them down.
Alright, provide enough shape to accommodate at least twenty five percent of the
employees
on the shift at any one time however retain the ability to permit access to
all workers that request it.
So, at a minimum start with
you need to kind of plan to have at least uh... enough shade out there for
twenty five percent of the crew,
but over and above if it more than that request
to have the shade
then you're supposed to be able to provide that shade as well.
Remember access to shade must be permitted at all times.
Encourage employees to take a cool down rest in the shade for a period of no
less than five minutes.
That's written right into the standard.
The idea here is that, if we take,
if we take small
breaks
throughout the day
we kind of control this a little bit,
this work factor
so the warmer it gets,
if we keep were able to sort of work out a work, rest, regiment
little more frequently as it gets really hot,
we can really control that big plus on the work side.
If we look at a group that has a recommended
heat standard called ACGIH
American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists
and they actually have a calculation that you do as the warmer it gets the
heavier the clothing you have on, all of these factors that can affect
your body core temperature going up,
whether a persons been acclimatized or not it actually calculates the
work, rest, regiment for you.
The American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists,
it's a...it's a real simple little calculation.
It allows you to go through it actually calculate that,
the military uses something very similar to that.
They work in these very hot environments over Afghanistan and Iraq,
ACGIH
So it's important that you encourage employees to take these cool down breaks.
Shaded area must not cause exposure to another health or safety hazard.
Areas underneath mobile equipment
and initially we had some people
hanging out under trailers..
they could move
on wheels out there
so tractors
Or areas that require crouching in order to sit
fully in the shade or not acceptable. This looks pretty comfortable,
not only that
you know that the ground underneath the pop up
can get pretty warm, specially on the angle the sun.
And that ground can be a warm surface
but here,
in an orchard
that grounds been in the shade for
most of the day, and that grounds pretty cool where that persons sitting.
So you have to be careful where you plop somebody down if they're not feeling well, we don't
want to heat em up, right?
There's another one of those heat factors here with hot surfaces,
but natural shade is okay,
natural shades okay but you have to be able
you have to be able to assume a comfortable posture.
Standard vineyards,
traditional standard row vineyards,
you're not going to...
you don’t normally get enough shade there cause the sun is at a real low angle, but a trellis
vineyard you should be able to comfortably set underneath when these
new hire trellis vineyards. Citrus trees
typically you're not going to be able to get
crawl up underneath the citrus tree they let him go to the ground,
there's a lot of deadwood under there, it's tough to crawl up underneath a citrus
tree.
But a lot of nut and uh... stone fruit..
you should be able to get in there, if they are mature orchards,
and be able to find some shade.
If you're working in an area where there is no natural shade
and there is natural share a mile down the road,
you can’t say that's our employees are gonna walk that mile
that's not as close as practicable. You have to come up with some other sort of
solution that's that's nearby.
If the temperatures below eighty five,
it doesn’t exceed it,
provide the shade access upon request so people can request it.
Even if it's not eight five.
In my experience that doesn't happen very often.
In situations where the employer can demonstrate that is not safe or
feasible to provide shade, an employer can utilize established procedures
for providing shade upon request
or for non-agricultural employers, alternative cooling measures
that provide equivalent protection can be used.
Okay so what does this mean? This means for instance we had a situation,
experience over in the Salinas valley it's really windy over there, especially in
the afternoons.
There was a pop-up set up over there,
and it was in staked down
and the pop-up became a kite went into the overhead power line,
and part of the metal came down and actually hit a worker over there
from the pop up.
So there are situations where shade structures can be more dangerous
by putting them up
then coming up with some sort of alternative plan and that's what that's
what we're saying here.
Got a picture over hear of a of a little tent or shade structure,
you may not be able to see it but there's a trench there.
So we don't want people, say for instance, crawling down in and unsure
or
unprotected trench
right to get in the shade.
So...
I mean you got to be practical here and think about this.
And if you are a non agricultural employer
you do have that alternative
to go to other cooling measures other than shade.
as long as you can prove
that it provids equal protection of
shade.
Normally we talk about around fifteen degrees difference
with shade verses
out in direct sunlight.
When we say shade what what's the definition, what's Cal/OSHA definition of
shade?
There's no shadow, right, your not going to cast a shadow out there.
Now there are some groups,
that are trying to test out some shade cloth, like they use in a nursery
and the nice thing about the shade cloth is that it allows for air movement.
Cause some of these structures don't allow for air movement.
And we want that cooler air here
to be able to cool folks off.
So i know the NISEI farmers legaue up in Fresno, that group has actually been
testing some different shade cloth material,
so hopefully, we will see something come out of that,
see if that is an acceptable alternative. They’ve testing shade cloth against the pop up.