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• Florida Students Rally for Tobacco Workers 

Students at the University of Florida (UF) and the University of Central Florida (UCF) spent last Saturday morning raising their voices for justice for tobacco workers. Chanting�"Justice now!" and holding signs that read "Hasta la Victoria" ("Onward to Victory"), dozens of students marched and rallied on UF's Gainesville campus.

The students joined members of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC), the Student/Farmworker Alliance and the National Farm Worker Ministry to demand justice for tobacco farm workers in North Carolina who suffer low wages and poor working conditions at the hands of Big Tobacco.

The rally followed a UF Student Senate resolution calling for a pay increase and better treatment of Immokalee farm workers, who pick the tomatoes used by Aramark, UF's food provider. "Somebody's got to fight for social justice," said UF junior Justin Wooten.

The students and activists wanted to send a message to Susan Ivey, CEO of Reynolds American, the parent of R.J. Reynolds, the nation's second-largest tobacco company. Ivey has refused to meet with FLOC members

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• Parliament passes Tobacco Bill 

THE National Assembly adopted the Tobacco Products Control Bill with one amendment on Thursday, the last sitting day of the year.

The Bill will now go to the National Council, the House of Review. In a moment of rare agreement between the opposition and the benches of the ruling Swapo Party, Members agreed to a small, but important change of words in Clause 3, which originally stipulated that a member of the umbrella labour movement NUNW, should sit on one of the supervisory boards to be created once the bill is promulgated.

Tsudao Gurirab of the official opposition party CoD proposed that the words should be changed to “a member of organised labour” and thus would avoid the name of a specific labour union.

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• Ruling: Miners can keep chewing tobacco  

"It caused a lot of stress for a lot of people for [the company] to say you can't chew anymore," said Shelly, who testified last month before an United Mine Workers of America arbitrator. Miners had challenged a ban on smokeless tobacco use at the Emery County mine.

Arbitrator Fred Butler ruled in the union's favor Friday, determining that Energy West Mining Corp.'s new policy, officially implemented (but not enforced) July 1, violated the company's collective bargaining agreement covering 276 Deer Creek miners and 17 prep plant workers.

Energy West is the mining subsidiary of Rocky Mountain Power and its parent companies, PacifiCorp and MidAmerican Holdings Co., which enacted the policy at all of their properties.

Butler ruled that chewing tobacco is a prior practice that should be allowed to continue because it is not in conflict with the existing collective bargaining agreement.

In addition, Shelly and other union witnesses at the arbitration session argued that many miners are addicted to chewing tobacco.

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• Unions ready to fight hospital smoking ban 

HOSPITAL unions are drawing up a battle plan to fight a smoking ban introduced earlier this year.

Staffside, a collaboration of Unison and Unite, says staff are unhappy with the move, which was brought in on July 1.

The ban is not legally enforceable but patients, visitors and staff are being asked to respect it.

Union members who staged a protest about the ban in June, say it infringes human rights and people should have a choice about smoking.

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• Unions see red over enforcing smoking ban ($$) 

More than a dozen unions have pledged to the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department that they will enforce the smoking ban, its chief said yesterday, though union leaders disputed that claim.

Director of Food and Environmental Hygiene Cheuk Wing-hing said that he had met the heads of 13 of the department's unions, representing more than 5,400 civil servants, and that all leaders had said they would implement the law. The department has 16 unions.

His claim comes after seven representatives from the department's two staff unions marched to the Legislative Council's complaints division on Tuesday to file a complaint about being made to enforce the ban. A union leader present at yesterday's meeting with Cheuk said that some unions had made clear their opposition towards enforcing the ban.

But Cheuk said that it was only "individual groups" who were unwilling to perform their new duty.

"Civil servants in their right mind will implement the new law," he said.

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• Unions tell staff not to enforce smoking ban ($$) 

A government department's staff union has made a last-minute appeal to its members not to enforce the city's smoking ban - which is being extended today - but to perform only their original duties.

"We've issued a statement to our members, urging them to do our original duties," said Gary Cheung Siu-wing, chairman of the Leisure Service Staff General Union. . . .

Starting from today, 2,200 staff from the Leisure and Cultural Service Department, 700 from the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department and 430 from the Housing Department will be responsible for handing out fixed-penalty tickets to those who smoke in premises and venues under their management - such as libraries, wet markets, beaches and housing estates.

Cheung doubted if they had the legal right to issue the tickets, because over 90 per cent of them still had not got the new departmental warrant card. "Because it's an extra duty ... we need to have the warrant card before we can enforce the new ban," Cheung said.

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• Cuepacs told to remember non-smokers 

KUALA LUMPUR: Cuepacs is ignoring the rights of non-smokers when it opposed the Public Service Department's stand on no-smoking at government departments and agencies.

Prof Dr Rahmat Awang of Universiti Sains Malaysia's National Poison Centre and Malaysian Trades Union Congress adviser on indoor air quality Dr T. Jayabalan said Cuepacs must be seen to serve the rights of non-smokers as much as it wanted to protect the rights of smokers.

They said it had been proven that ventilation systems could not filter the particles and gases in tobacco smoke to safe levels. . . .

They were responding Cuepacs' call to PSD not to impose a blanket ban on smoking in government premises but to provide smokers with designated smoking areas. It was reported in a local daily recently that the PSD would monitor the no-smoking rule at government premises. The PSD had also said government servants were prohibited from smoking in government premises.

Dr Rahmat said the notion that designated smoking areas was a responsible alternative to a smoking ban was flawed.

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• SEIU pushes for oil, tobacco, liquor taxes  

The state’s biggest labor union is launching a $1-million TV advertising campaign promoting new taxes on the oil, tobacco and liquor industries in hopes of dissuading lawmakers from adopting the deep social services cuts proposed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Republican lawmakers and Schwarzenegger have vowed not to raise taxes to bridge the state’s projected $24-billion deficit, but officials with the Service Employees International Union hope the 30-second TV ad being aired around the state will drum up support for higher levies on certain industries.

The governor wants to eliminate the state’s welfare-to-work program, health insurance for the working poor and student grants, among other programs.

“The governor’s proposed cuts-only budget will destroy the California we know,” said Eliseo Medina, SEIU executive vice president.

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• Teachers Union's Objections Sink Smoking Ban in Pennsylvania  

The teachers at Pennsylvania's state colleges and universities have succeeded in doing what their students couldn't: overrule a statewide ban on smoking on campus.

Some students in the Keystone State raised a ruckus last September when the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education banned smoking throughout its 14 campuses, including all outdoor areas.

But the students' outcry went largely unheeded -- until their professors chimed in.

The Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties (APSCUF), the union that represents the 6,000 faculty members and coaches in the state school system, objected to the smoking ban -- and last month the state's Labor Relations Board overturned it, ruling that the education board had failed to negotiate with with the union.

The labor board ordered the education board to rescind the smoking ban for union members and to "cease and desist" from refusing to negotiate with the union. . . .

That leaves schools such as Clarion, West Chester and Kutztown Universities, among others, with tenuous holds on their smoking bans -- much to the delight of smokers like 21-year-old Clarion student Steven Dugan.

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• Pa. panel rules against state schools' smoking ban 

Pennsylvania's 14 state-owned universities cannot bar faculty members and coaches from smoking outdoors on campus, unless their unions agree to the restriction, a state labor panel ruled. . . .

The Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties, the union that represents 5,800 faculty members and coaches, filed an unfair labor practice complaint challenging the policy on grounds that any such change is subject to collective bargaining.

In a ruling last week, the state Labor Relations Board sided with the union. It ruled that the university system, like other public-sector employers, cannot impose such a ban on unionized employees without the consent of their collective-bargaining agents.

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• Tougher Smoking Policy Puts Union in Tight Spot 

The General Services Administration will no longer allow smoking lounges after June 19 in the 1,500 federal buildings it manages.

But a Federal Communications Commission facility in Columbia is not a GSA property, so its regulations do not apply to the small, nondescript room where FCC workers can go to scar their lungs.

The FCC wants to follow the GSA's lead and make those employees find other air to pollute, but it's not as simple as posting a no-smoking sign. The smoking room was negotiated with the National Treasury Employees Union and shutting it down requires negotiations too.

That puts the NTEU in a tricky situation. . . .

But what happens when those it represents feel they have rights that are in conflict? Should a union protect the right of unionized smokers when those smokers trample on the right of nonsmokers, also in the bargaining unit, to smoke-free air?

Research leaves no doubt that the nonsmoking side easily wins this debate.

Yet, the union that so forcefully stands up for its members in other ways is a bit weak in the knees when it comes to the smoking room.

"It is important that they [smokers] have a place to go that is away from other employees and safe for them as well," NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley said in December. . . .

Galosky isn't alone in opposing the smoking room.

Evelyn Cherry, who was a local union officer in the 1990s, says only a few people at the FCC facility smoke. "Is it better to cut out the small room or jeopardize the majority?" she asked.

She wants the smoking room closed. "Even though they may have a room that they may call ventilated," she said, "it's still not ventilated to the extent that you can't inhale it but because you can still smell it."

By the way, the National Institutes of Health, where people know something about the ill effects of smoking, does not allow it anywhere, inside or outdoors, on its 311-acre Bethesda campus.

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• Beedi workers’ unions cry foul over Centre’s order 

HYDERABAD: Beedi workers' unions in the State are up in arms again with the Supreme Court clearing the Central government law making it mandatory to display pictorial warnings on tobacco packs from May 31.

Consequent to the implementation of Section 7 of the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution) Act, 2003, it will be compulsory to depict lungs for smoking forms of tobacco packages and scorpion for chewing and smokeless forms. . . .

M. Sirajuddin, president of All-India Beedi, Cigarette and Tobacco Workers Federation said the direction would cripple the beedi industry. Women who formed the bulk of the beedi workers were already feeling the pinch of insecurity said S. Rama, general secretary of AP Beedi and Cigar Workers Union. Two women beedi workers had already ended their lives in Nizamabad and Medak district, perturbed over their future.

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• MYERS: Smoking is a workplace issue 

"Bar and tavern owners, as well as customers, have expressed anger and confusion over the law since it was enacted," reported the Las Vegas Review-Journal last week.

Owners and customers. Is someone missing from that survey?

"I have to shower--really well, including shampooing--before my wife will let me into bed," says one Sparks Nugget dealer. . . .

"Tourists are in and out," said a Circus Circus worker. "I breathe that stuff all night."

Workers say the state anti-smoking law does them more good than it does customers, who are normally in a casino or restaurant for a relatively short time. Workers are there for a full shift--giving them extended exposure to involuntary inhalation of second-hand smoke.

Studies have shown that second-hand smoke can be a factor in asthma, heart disease, sudden infant death syndrome, cancer, stroke and premature death.

But extended exposure to second-hand smoke increases risks. . . .

In one unusual action, public officials opposed the law approved by the public. Officers of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority supported repealing the voter-approved law outright because it bars advertising tobacco products at trade shows as well as prohibits smoking at convention centers.

Casino workers declined to allow their names to be used in speaking for anti-smoking measures because their corporations are lobbying in the other direction. "I wouldn't have a job if they knew," one said. "I just hope the unions are taking this on."

Nevada AFL/CIO lobbyist Danny Thompson said his organization has not taken the issue on in part because it has not been pushed to do so by the membership and in part because members are on different sides of the issue.

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• Pa. Supreme Court hears police tobacco ban lawsuit  

A state ban on smoking in most workplaces has taken much of the fire--but not the smokeless tobacco--out of a long-simmering dispute between a western Pennsylvania municipality and its police.

Attorneys for Ellwood City, its police union, and the Pennsylvania Labor Relations board argued before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Monday about whether Ellwood City has a right to ban tobacco use on borough property, including by its officers working in the police station and patrol cars.

The high court heard the arguments because the police union appealed the Commonwealth Court's 5-2 decision early last year overruling the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board. The PLRB had found that Ellwood City committed an unfair labor practice when it subjected police to the August 2006 tobacco ban without submitting the issue to collective bargaining.

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• Strike: When workers broke Camel City  

His sins were many, under the law of the land, and his penance, severe.

For organizing the Piedmont Leaf strike of 1946 at R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., a labor action that cast a long shadow on civil rights in the South, Philip Koritz was to be banished from North Carolina for life.

Still, just to be certain, the judge who set Koritz's penalty for a charge of resisting arrest on a picket line first sentenced the Local 22 director to six months' hard labor on a chain gang in Sparta, near the Virginia line. . . .

So when Koritz picked up his Unsung Hero award a month ago at the black-tie Sit-In Movement Inc. banquet in Greensboro, even an ageless Harry Belafonte confessed to doing a double-take: The erect, sturdy Koritz looks, and holds forth at 91, more like a man of 71. . . .

But it wasn't until Koritz beheld the downtown skyline and the headquarters of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. - a 20-story scale version of the Empire State Building, designed by the same architects - that the New York City-born union organizer understood what lay ahead.

"I knew this was formidable," Koritz recalls of what was then the world's largest tobacco company, booming at the height of World War II. "I knew we were in for a fight."

As did his parents, Russian-born Jewish sweatshop organizers and activists before him, and both his sons, union organizers in his footsteps, Philip Koritz arrived on the scene of a fight that had already started.

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