Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #107720

Elizabeth M. Barbeau, ScD, MPH, Center for Community-Based Research, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, 44 Binney Street, SM 268, Boston, MA 02155, Charles Levenstein, Ph D, Department of Work Environment, University of Massachusetts Lowell, 1 University Avenue, Lowell, MA 01854, (978) 934-3268, Charles_Levenstein@uml.edu, and Edith D. Balbach, PhD, MPP, Community Health Program, Tufts University, 112 Packard Ave, Medford, MA 02155.

The General Services Administration of the federal government proposed the introduction of a smokefree worksites policy for the US Department of Health and Human Services in the late 1980s, and more recently, the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention proposed a smokefree campus policy. These efforts have been opposed by labor unions representing employees in these worksites. To many, it may seem ironic that an organization intended to represent the interests of its members, particularly ones employed by a health organization, would fight a proposed policy to protect workers' from exposure to secondhand smoke. Using a case study approach involving data from the tobacco industry documents, the press, and in-depth interviews, we analyze the how's and why's of this opposition, which was organized largely by public sector unions. We discuss the rise of public sector unions in the labor movement, their recently-acquired (in some, but not all, states) rights to collectively bargain with management over working conditions, and the resulting implications for efforts to implement smokefree worksite policies in these settings. The findings have far-reaching implications for tobacco control advocacy struggles in public sector worksites across the nation and at all levels of government.

Learning Objectives:

• Participants will acquire knowledge about how and why labor unions representing DHHS employees have opposed smokefree worksite policies.
• Participants will be able to describe the implications of recently-won collective bargaining rights for worksite-based tobacco control policy and politics.
• Participants will be able to identify opportunities for increasing the effectiveness of advocacy campaigns for unionized smokefree worksites.

Keywords: Tobacco Control, Labor-Management Relations

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commertial supporters WITH THE EXCEPTION OF Massachusetts state employee.