Proposed rules could protect Indiana farm workers from extreme heat — if they're enforced

The Biden administration has proposed standards for protecting farm workers in extreme heat. That’s good news for workers in Indiana — where there aren’t state laws to protect them from heat, only federal guidelines. But enforcing those new standards could be difficult.

The standards are pretty common sense. They require employers to provide things like water, shaded rest areas and breaks.

Caysey Farmer is an attorney with Indiana Legal Services — which advocates for farm workers’ rights. She said she was happy to see that employers would also have to acclimate new workers to the heat and develop strategic plans that are specific to the job.

Still, Farmer said those protections wouldn’t be guaranteed for farm workers in rural Indiana, who often worry they’ll lose their job if they complain.

“It's hard to enforce things like that when they're very far away from everything. They don't speak the language. They're just a lot of holes in the system for enforcing these sorts of protections, which is where my job comes in," she said.

READ MORE: Without state, federal protections, extreme heat puts Indiana farm workers in danger
 

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Farmer said she’d also like to see breaks made mandatory rather than just encouraged by employers.

“When the workers are typically paid piece-rate or they're paid by the bucket, you can't really just take a break when you're feeling tired from the heat to do that because you're missing out on money," she said.

Rebecca is our energy and environment reporter. Contact her at rthiele@iu.edu or follow her on Twitter at @beckythiele.