Tobacco.org

• Smokers Worldwide Support Workplace Smoking Bans, Study Finds 

The majority of smokers worldwide support smoking bans in the workplace, according to a new study by RTI International and Harris Interactive.

The study, published in the International Journal of Public Health online edition, surveyed more than 3,500 employees who smoke and more than 1,400 employers (both smokers and nonsmokers) in 14 counties about their attitudes toward workplace smoking and cessation.

The results showed that 74 percent of smoking employees and 87 percent of employers felt that the workplace should be smoke free. . . .

The greatest support for workplace smoking bans was in India (85 percent) and Japan (75 percent). In contrast, only one-third of employees in Germany (33 percent) and Poland (37 percent) agreed with a workplace smoking ban.

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• Anti-smoking laws being violated  

Smokers violating the law of complete ban on tobacco use at work and public places have still continued this practice in the federal capital. Citizens complained that after withdrawal of Statutory Rules and Orders (SRO), all public and work places have become smoke-free, therefore, smokers should not be allowed smoking or using tobacco in any other form in any public place.

They said individuals and offices are clearly violating the ordinance. They said complete implementation of law would help protect the health of non-smokers and make the smokers abiders of the concerned laws.

It is pertinent to mention here that earlier, all public and private offices were allowed to designate a separate place for smokers to smoke within office premises with adequate arrangements to protect the health of non-smokers.

However, such permission was being misused

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• Smoking debate sparks new row 

Smokers are being told to stub it out in their OWN homes before any visit by council staff. The move by Moyle District Council is designed to protect employees from exposure to second-hand smoke.

But it was slammed as "ludicrous" last night by lobby group Forest, who warned other local authorities across Northern Ireland were likely to follow suit.

The smoking ban, introduced in May 2006, covers all enclosed public places as well as the workplace.

But the legislation did not include any reference to extending it to people's homes.

The new policy in Moyle, which covers areas including Ballycastle, Cushendun and Bushmills, stipulates:

"Where council employees are required to work or visit other premises that are not entirely smoke-free, all reasonable arrangements will be made to minimise exposure to second-hand smoke.

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• Could smoking cost you a job?  

The cost of being a smoker

Employers pay in excess of 70% of the total cost of health insurance premiums each year. They also carry the additional burden of health-related absenteeism and reduced productivity.

With so much money at stake, it is no surprise that employers are increasingly looking beyond insurance company negotiations for ways to cut these expenses. Rightly or wrongly, many are turning now to another primary source of rising health care costs: workers themselves.

The facts are simple: Lifestyle choices, particularly those related to eating and smoking, play a major role in the development of chronic diseases, which in turn account for some 75% of all health care spending in the United States.

For example, smokers' health care costs run about 40% higher than nonsmokers' costs. Preventable illnesses caused by smoking and obesity annually account for more than $100 billion in overall health care spending -- and some experts estimate that smoke breaks and smoking-related absences cost employers an aditional $100 billion in lost productivity every year.

So it's no surprise that some employers want to exclude smokers and overeaters from their payrolls and, by association, from their health plans. Is it legal for them to do so? As is so often the case with any question of law, the answer is: It depends.

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• No Country for Smokers 

While the omnipresent electronic gaming and casinos in Montana don’t appear to be going anywhere, the iconic smokey barrooms of that state are now just a memory. On Oct. 1, Montana became the most recent state to prohibit smoking indoors of all public places. Bars across Montana have scrambled, several news outlets reported, to concoct new ways to provide alternative smoking areas, by putting chairs and heaters in adjacent garages, or even building makeshift “butt huts” outside.

The Wyoming state legislature, meanwhile, has declined to touch the issue, with few indications it might pick it up in the forseable future. Some have suggested the influence of tobacco lobbyists in Cheyenne is to blame. But others, including a state representative involved in the smoking issue in Teton County, say Wyoming legislators are politically hardwired to avoid what they perceive is over-governing, which would include passing a statewide smoking ban. Legislators have decided instead to let individual communities decide whether to implement local smoking bans.

So when the Teton District Board of Health took it upon itself in March to pass a county-wide rule that would prohibit smoking inside public places, with an exception or two, it followed a few other communities that have passed some kind of smoking ban. Cheyenne, Evanston and Green River have adopted smoking rules (yet bars are exempted in Green River), but no other county health board in the state has taken on smoking, according to county attorney Keith Gingery.

A lawsuit filed soon after the vote put the ban on hold, allowing people to keep lighting up in the Virginian, which happens to be the only bar in the valley that has not voluntarily prohibited smoking. The owners of the Virginian Saloon and three other organizations are challenging the ban. . . .

In her decision, Judge Guthrie will weigh whether the smoking ban meets equal protection laws, which state that a law must be evenly applied to everyone. Freudenthal argues the smoking rule should be struck down in part because it forbids employees from smoking in company-owned vehicles. . . .

The judge could rule on the case sometime in the first months of 2010, Gingery said.

Until then, smokers will continue to light up in the Virginian, where, according to some, cigarette smoke is as much a part of the atmosphere as the jukebox, the shake-a-shift and the baskets of free popcorn available at the bar. A smokey bar is an increasingly rare site in America, but it remains to be seen whether its time has come for Jackson Hole. One thing is clear: some form of public smoking ban found today in all but 14 states, including Wyoming, the spark of community bans across the state, and the dominance of voluntary smoke-free policies locally, has spelled out the shift against smoking in general.

“I think some people are already saying ‘Why didn’t we do it here sooner?’” Blue said.

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• Tax Collector's Office won't be blowing smoke  

Palm Beach County Tax Collector Anne Gannon has decided the butt stops here.

She said Wednesday she will no longer hire anyone who has regularly used tobacco products, saying smokers in her office stick taxpayers with paying for rising health-care costs.

Existing smokers among her 240 employees get to keep their jobs, but are being "encouraged" to quit, Gannon said. But they will pay more for health insurance: She plans to increase what those employees pay toward their coverage by as much as 20 percent.

Gannon said her goal is to cut down on rising health insurance costs and to encourage a healthier, more productive working environment.

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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 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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• CONSTRUX SITES STILL SMOKIN'  

New York construction sites are smokin' hot -- and that's bad.

A nearly yearlong crackdown on smoking at construction sites around the city by the Buildings Department has resulted in almost 1,000 violations being issued and $1.8 million in fines, The Post has learned.

The butt blitz -- the first time the department has cited contractors for smoking violations -- began last Sept. 6. It was spurred by the 2007 deaths of two firefighters in a cigarette-sparked blaze at the troubled Deutsche Bank demolition site near Ground Zero.

"It's a disgrace that people continue to smoke on construction sites," said Buildings Commissioner Robert LiMandri. "Smoking is prohibited on construction sites for a reason -- because it puts lives at serious risk."

"Our inspectors will continue to enforce the smoking ban because the industry has got to change."

As of last Wednesday, LiMandri's inspectors had issued 932 violations . . .

The most-cited site -- with nine smoking-related violations -- was the ongoing construction of the 57-story W hotel/condo building at 123 Washington St. That's right across the street from the Deutsche Bank site, where firefighters Joseph Graffagnino and Robert Beddia were killed on April 18, 2007.

The Post recently was told that FDNY officials suspect that a cigar butt found at the Deutsche Bank site at 130 Liberty St. on June 10 -- which led to a violation being issued to the contractor, Bovis -- actually fell or was tossed from the W site.

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• Smoker who lost job loses in court 

Rodrigues's smoking was not a protected privacy interest because he never kept his puffing a secret.

In granting Scotts's motion for summary judgment, US District Court Judge George A. O'Toole Jr. said that Rodrigues admitted in a deposition that he smoked while walking down the street and in a restaurant parking lot and was caught by a Scotts supervisor with a pack of cigarettes on his dashboard.

"It is clear from those admissions that Rodrigues has not attempted to keep the fact of his smoking private,'' O'Toole wrote.

The judge also rejected Rodrigues's contention that his firing violated the 1974 federal law that protects employees' rights to their benefits. O'Toole said that law did not protect Rodrigues because he was not yet a bona fide employee and was only working on the condition that he passed the urinalysis.

Rodrigues, 32, said the ruling was stunning and accused O'Toole of bias in favor of corporations. . . .

Rodrigues's appeal, Schwartz said, will address "an important fundamental legal question, which is whether an employer can fire an employee who smokes on his own time away from work because the employer wants to save on medical insurance costs.''

Edward L. Sweda Jr., a senior attorney for the Tobacco Products Liability Project at Northeastern University School of Law, said he was not surprised by O'Toole's ruling because "there is no inherent right to both smoke and have a particular job.''

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• SCOTT RODRIGUES, Plaintiff, v. EG SYSTEMS, INC. d/b/a SCOTTS LAWNSERVICE, Defendant. (PDF) 

The plaintiff, Scott Rodrigues, brings suit under both Massachusetts General Laws chapter 214, § 1B, and the Employee Retirement Income Security Act anti-discrimination provision (“ERISA Section 510”), 29 U.S.C. § 1140, alleging that defendant, EG Systems, Inc. d/b/a Scotts LawnService (“Scotts”), violated his right to privacy under the Massachusetts statute and unlawfully discharged him to avoid paying him denied benefits under Scotts’ medical insurance plan. Scotts has moved for summary judgment on both claims; Rodrigues has moved for partial summary judgment as to the ERISA Section 510 claim. . . .

Rodrigues does not qualify as a participant in the plan under these provisions. He worked for Scotts for only two weeks and his “regular” employment was clearly made contingent on his successful passing of the background check and urinalysis screening. He was not yet eligible for benefit coverage under the Scotts plan. The letter offering him employment states, “This offer is contingent upon successful completion of a pre-hire screening required of all Scotts’ associates which includes but is not limited to a drug screen (including nicotine test where applicable by law) and criminal history.” (Id. Ex. L, 2) (emphasis added).

Rodrigues contends that he would have become a regular, full-time employee, and thus a participant, if Scotts had not wrongfully relied on the discovery of nicotine in the urinalysis to terminate his incipient employment. He invokes statements like one from the Vartanian case to the effect that an employer should not be able through its own misfeasance to defeat an employee’s standing. . . .

there is a simple reason why Rodrigues may not sue. Section 510 forbids discrimination by a variety of employment-related actions, but it does not, by its terms, forbid discrimination by means of a decision not to hire. In Becker v. Mack Trucks, Inc., 281 F.3d 372, 379-83 (3d Cir. 2002), the Third Circuit examined both the text and the purpose of Section 510 and concluded that it does not apply to hiring decisions. . . .

Becker’s reasoning is sound. A person such as Rodrigues, who has only a contingent offer of employment, does not have an expectation of benefits under the potential employer’s ERISA plan that Section 510 protects.

IV. Conclusion

For the foregoing reasons, the defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment (dkt. no. 49) is GRANTED, and the plaintiff’s Motion for Partial Summary Judgment (dkt. no. 55) is DENIED.

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• Counties Can Pass Smoking Rules 

The Michigan Supreme Court has ruled that counties can put more stringent anti-smoking rules in place than state lawmakers.

Courts have said only the Legislature can ban smoking in restaurants and bars.

But local governments are prohibiting smoking inside other businesses because of secondhand smoke risks.

All seven justices on the high court said Tuesday that local officials can adopt stricter smoking regulations than the state to safeguard public health.

But the court split 4-3 on another issue, voting to uphold a northern Michigan health department's rules letting workers sue if they're fired for asserting the right to a smoke-free environment.

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• West County firefighters put out the (cigarette) smoke  

Fire officials in west St. Louis County want to make sure all that's smoking are the fires.

In what's thought to be the most aggressive anti-smoking policy among fire departments in the state, firefighters and other employees of the West County EMS and Fire Protection District won't be allowed to smoke on the job or in uniform starting in January.

Also, all employees hired after Jan. 1 must agree not to smoke or chew tobacco while on- or off-duty.

"The spirit of the policy is not to get anybody in trouble," district spokeswoman Kim Bacon said. "Everybody knows it's in their best interest." . . .

Minda said he was surprised by the positive reaction among firefighters. The union's vote to approve the policy was unanimous.

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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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• Humana: We won't hire smokers 

Humana of Ohio will require all new employees who smoke to quit the habit.

The insurer, which employs more than 1,200 people at its new headquarters in Walnut Hills and hundreds more at a distribution center in West Chester, said Monday it would give all new employees a questionnaire.

If the workers use tobacco, they will have 31 days to enroll in a program called Breathe. . . .

It is not an issue in Kentucky, which has a law making smokers a protected class.

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