Smoking ban: New Labour doesn’t care about workers' health!
By Sofie Buckland
Sunday 1 July saw the introduction of the controversial “smoking ban”, outlawing smoking in “enclosed public spaces” (train station platforms as well as buildings, for example) and workplaces. As a smoker it’s a little irritating to no longer be able to enjoy a smoke with a pint, but there’s little justification socialists can give for not supporting a ban — passive smoking is really quite obviously harmful, whatever the tobacco company sponsored research might say, and workers shouldn’t be subject to it on the job.
The “liberal” left view, characterised by Christopher Hitchens in the Guardian, seems to be that bar and restaurant workers should just get another job if they don’t like it — ignoring the fact these workers are often the most vulnerable; where do they suggest unskilled bar workers go if all bars allow smoking? Forcing workers to choose between their health and their job is just wrong, with a logic that could be applied to any health and safety demand — although health and safety is hardly the government’s rationale for bringing in the ban
Whilst I’m not in favour of agitating against this ban, there are problems with it. The government claims that 600,000 smokers will give up because of it, which is no bad thing. However, they back this up with figures on how much the NHS will save treating smoking-related diseases — not so much “give up, it’s bad for you” and “give up, we’re not prepared to fund the NHS properly”. Like the requirement to lose weight before being treated for some conditions, linking availability of treatment to certain lifestyle changes somewhat undermines the idea of a universal health service, not to mention exposing the government’s concern with reducing the cost of the NHS.
There’s also an issue of workers’ control — why ban smoking rooms from offices when they could be organised so no non-smoker had to clean them? In reality, bosses are probably more concerned with accommodating smoking habits into the working day (and the amount of time not working that implies) than with their employees’ health. Not smoking in workplaces like offices appears to have been much less controversial than not smoking in pubs — probably because most people don’t think of pubs as workplaces, but places to go to get away from work.
So what’s the next step? It looks like outlawing smoking in cars may follow the public spaces ban, with suggestions by some of the press that banning tobacco entirely might be on the cards. Although if the government was genuinely serious about protecting public health it would make sense (from a nanny state point of view, anyway), a ban on tobacco is extremely unlikely — it’s neither in the interests of government, in terms of tax revenue from cigarettes, or the interests of the huge tobacco industry. And clearly, these things are far more important to the Labour government, when you really get down to it, than public health, no matter what their press releases say.
- Login or register to post comments
- Printer-friendly version
A curious read
Socialists should rejoice at the smoking ban. It protects workers' health and could lead to many workers giving up the habit.
Smoking is a filthy, stupid addiction and Sofie can't have it both ways. Either the government is keen to save money for the NHS, or gather in tax revenue from tobacco sales. You can't have it both ways really.
Damn the ban
All we're doing is trading lung cancer for skin cancer standing out in the elements. Working in a place where people smoke is a choice, a risk of the job. It would be like banning knives from kitchens. Addiction is rarely a choice, as is the social alienation smokers are now being subjected to.
Before smoking was banned on commercial jets the air was actually safer than it is now. Since the smoke had to be filtered from the air, extraction fans were used. Now smoke's not an issue it seems neither is the quality of the air. Imagine that, smokers improving the health of the non-smokers through the act of smoking. The irony
Smoking and workers
To say that"all we're doing is trading lung cancer for skin cancer standing out in the elements" is very silly.
Over 114,000 people died last year from smoking related diseases.1,800 died from skin cancer ,mostly from chronic exposure to sun which can be avoided-smoke can't when we're in the same room.Saying workers should put up with forced exposure to second hand smoke is a bit like saying everyone is free to sleep in cardboard boxes-not a great argument from socialists! A worker in a smoking pub has the same levels of poisonous smoke in their body as a moderate smoker.No-one to my knowledge was accidentally killed in a commercial kitchen last year by knives even though they are dangerous.On the problem of air quality on airplanes-I'm not aware the death rate has increased but if it has start a campaign as that is a scandal few of us have heard about.
Tim Cooper
Who is forcing anyone
Who is forcing anyone to work in a pub? I don't like snakes but I wouldn't get a job in the zoo and then ask for the reptile enclosure to be removed. I knew it was there, that it was apart of the job, BEFORE I STARTED. All the smoking ban does, in places where it is either accepted of facilitated, is make iller those who have no choice, ie the addicted.
Side with the workers.
Workers in pubs also know that sexual harassment,low wages,physical assault from drunken customers,ruthless employers etc are also rife in that industry it doesn't mean they should accept the status quo or leave.
We support them in their struggles for a safer working environment. If a person has a fear of glass,people,fruit juice,alcohol,crisps etc(or snakes in a reptile themed pub!) I agree that they would be better off not working in a pub.I'm surprised to see such arguments raised on a socialist site.Even my local MP ,Ken Clarke,who is Chair of the biggest fag company ,British American Tobacco, didn't argue the "like it or lump it" argument but went down the road of saying improve ventilation in pubs.When the ventilation of pubs was shown to be ineffective(undercover TV investigators backed by the worker's unions who allowed testing of poisonous fumes in bloodstreams of workers' in highly ventilated pubs)it was the last nail in the coffin for the pro-tobacco lobby .There were still loads of MP's who were not going to vote for the total indoors ban right up to the last minute but when they saw the big majorities in opinion polls supporting a ban they followed the flow.
Now you won't find many MP's that would vote for a reintroduction of smoking in pubs as the majorities supporting a ban have increased since introduction.
Numbers of smokers giving up has been record numbers since July and also fag sales are down 7%. And before the argument of "what about tobacco workers jobs?"-the Tobacco Workers Union has not opposed the ban and MP's such as Alan Simpson who have the largest concentration of tobacco workers in their constituences are the most vociferous opponents of pub smoking.
The biggest reason Ken Clarke and the tobacco industry are not worried is they are making record profits by getting more people addicted in the developing countries and new teenage addicts remain high in this country and they know that addiction rates remain high even after pub bans(from evidence in US,ireland etc)And of course prevention education and support for addicts remains only a tiny percentage of tobacco tax revenue(£52m compared to £8billion ie less than 1%!) Don't side with the bosses-side with the workers!
Tim Cooper
Sexual harasment, low wages,
Sexual harasment, low wages, physical assault and ruthless employers can be potential problems in most if not all jobs. Smoking is specific to pubs/clubs in that the worker has no choice but to passive smoke (there probably are others). If anyone's being anti-socialist it's you for dictating how people can or can't socialise.
For workers' liberty
Passive smoking is not specific to pubs/clubs it's any enclosed space where people smoke!
There has always been opposition to restrictions on people's "rights" ro socialise in a way that is fatal to others.
When the breathalyser law was brought in in the 60's it wasn't just motoring organisations ,the pub industrialists etc that objected MP's who were going to vote for it faced opposition from many pub goers-MP's even received death threats for "dictating how people can or can't socialise".But within a year car fatalities fell by over 1000 and injuries fell by 40,000-and now very few people call for unrestricted drinking and driving.
When smoking bans were introduced into many workplaces ,mostly from the 80's onwards,there was similar opposition-which has lessened greatly as people feel the benefits and smokers realised it made giving up easier.
We don't support reintroducing signs that say "no blacks,no gypsies" which used to abound in many pubs or "no women" which abounded in working men's clubs etc-even where they had support from the social customers-we see the restriction of the rights to harm others-even where it is a long tradition-as a step forward for human liberation.
It was not me who brought in ,or even campaigned, for the smoking ban in enclosed public places and it certainly wasn't the employers,big or small business leaders,.It was thousands of doctors and nurses that see the scale of the carnage and suffering.and I'm not just talking about the hundreds or thousands of deaths from passive smoking(depending on which statistics are accepted) but the countless thousands of asthma,emphysema etc that are caused.
The many cancer researchers who had to win the battle for the truth against the tobacco sponsored research.The unions -and not just the unions that represent the workers affected but all unions. And for me the most poignant of all are the many, many cancer sufferers themselves who spent their last period alive dedicating themselves to the education of others.
The TUC says that passive smoking is responsible for more deaths in the workplace than ALL other workplace fatalities combined.
I totally understand how being addicted means that it is frustrating to have to step out to have a smoke when in a pub-but we should be supporting more money to be spent on helping addicts give up(free patches,counselling etc)and more on education,banning all tobacco advertising and sponsorship and forcing the fag companies to hand over their profits to supporting the pitiful amount spent on allievating lung cancer sufferers(only 4% of the cancer budget).
Workers' liberty is the cause for socialists-not consumer libertarianism!
Tim Cooper
Trotsky's View
After the expulsion of thousands of members of the Opposition at the end of 1927, and their physical removal into exile in many cases at the beginning of 1928, Trotsky entered into extensive correspondence with those Oppositionists whose whereabouts he could obtain.
In a letter to a young Oppositionist, A.G. Ishchenko who had been exiled and was working in Government office in Kainsk, Trotsky made the following comments in respect to a complaint raised by the young Ishchenko.
"How vexing it is! That your office is smoke-fileld and stuffy is an additional ourage. If I were in your palce, I would demand that the local Soviet Executive Committee, or party committee, or Rabkrin (the Workers and peasants Inspection), instead of jawing about rationalising work processes in general, make the elementary improvement of forbidding smoking in workplaces during working hours."
In "Pyatakov: A Politically Finished Man" from "The Challenge of the Left Opposition Vol III"
Arthur Bough
In regards to the ban
I don't think work places which previously had more than adequate facilities to accommidate smokers should have to adhere to the current legislation. The same goes with pubs. If smoking was to be introduced after someone was employed then I can see the objection. But pubs have been "smoking zones" for a long time, much longer than anyone person has been employed there. If you can't stand the heat get out the kitchen, don't turn off the oven!!!
If anything should be censored
It should be this pile of shite above!
This was in response to the spammed message (now deleted - admin), not to any of the actual posts