Labor and Tobacco Control: Emerging Opportunities for Collaboration

The tobacco control movement has been successful in its efforts to regulate environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) in recent years. Since 1993, 21 states and over 3,000 municipalities have passed clean indoor air laws that prohibit smoking. While the tobacco control movement has enlisted a variety of allies in its policy efforts, including civic organizations, business associations, consumer groups, and the medical community, it has been less successful in forming coalitions with organized labor.

As the U.S. economy becomes more service-oriented, tobacco control advocates have an opportunity for greater collaboration with organized labor. Worksite smoking restriction policies have been a difficult issue for unions when the focus is on employee smoking. The dynamics are different when smoke is an occupational hazard generated by customers, as opposed to an on-the-job behavior of fellow union members. Controlling the former fits more neatly into the mission of the union, while the latter can be politically sensitive. The instrumental role of flight attendants in the passage of smoke-free airlines legislation in the late 1980s illustrates the potential for employees and unions to advocate for tobacco control as a workplace health and safety issue.

As state/local efforts continue to address ETS, it is useful to look historically at smoking related worksite harms and efforts to control them. This paper utilizes original case study research on labor unions and tobacco control to examine the evolution of ETS as an occupational health issue and identify factors that contribute to labor union involvement in successful smokefree worksite campaigns.