Unexpected allies: Union women, the tobacco industry, and excise taxes

This presentation will describe how cigarette excise tax increases during the 1980s facilitated a relationship between the Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW), a group representing working class women in the U.S., and the tobacco industry. The development of this relationship indicates that excise tax increases, if pursued without consideration of broader political agendas, can have the unintended consequence of creating a relationship between working class women and the tobacco industry. In building this relationship, the tobacco industry capitalized upon the opposition of advocates for poor and working class women to conservative social economic policies, which favored the reduction of social spending and regressive revisions to the tax code. CLUW's relationship with the tobacco industry indicates that excise tax increases, if pursued without consideration of broader political agendas, may undermine support from advocates for women's interests. Because cigarette excise tax increases are currently endorsed as important tobacco control instruments in the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and WHO's MPower Package, the CLUW case may be instructive for tobacco control advocates as cigarette excise taxes gain increasing attention as a policy tool to control tobacco consumption.