September 12, 2006
Tobacco has raised complex and difficult issues for unions around the world. On the one hand, many unions have been wary of workplace rules that would infringe on the rights of their members who smoke. They have opposed anti-smoking policies unilaterally imposed by employers. And they have been concerned about the possible loss of jobs by workers in tobacco-based industries.
On the other hand, tobacco smoke constitutes a prime – and involuntary — environmental health risk for workers in the workplace. Both active and passive smoking represent a major public health risk for workers and their families. Tobacco workers face severe health problems, and the global migrations of the tobacco industry are increasingly putting their livelihoods at risk.
The complexity of this issue has been recognized by the tobacco control movement. For example, Strategy Planning for Tobacco Control Movement Building, published by the American Cancer Society and the International Union Against Cancer, describes labor unions as among the “potentially important groups for a strong national tobacco control movement.” But it also warns that “Labor unions have mixed attitudes about regulating workplace smoking.”
There are now many years of experience in countries around the world regarding unions and tobacco control. But there has so far been little effort to analyze this experience and draw lessons from it. There is much to be learned from that experience that could be useful in other countries.
For example, labor attitudes toward smoking changed radically in the U.S. when the dominant paradigm shifted from the individual right to smoke to the provision of a safe and healthy environment for those who would otherwise be involuntarily subject to second hand smoke. In Ireland, a union representing workers in restaurants and pubs actually became the prime advocate for legal restrictions on smoking in their workplaces. To the surprise of all, the ban became so popular that it benefited the political party that supported it at the next election.
There are also a variety of emerging questions that may help reframe tobacco and labor issues in new ways. For example, tobacco workers in many countries are facing the same issues of globalization as other workers. Global tobacco corporations have been moving jobs to Eastern Europe and the developing world. All tobacco workers are thereby put in competition in what Wall Street economist Stephen Roach has called “global labor arbitrage.” Unions need to decide how to respond.
As the tobacco industry migrates to the developing world, the social issues involved become even more acute. Health risks include exposure to toxic pesticides and Green Tobacco Sickness, a form of nicotine poisoning common among tobacco workers. In Africa and India, child labor is commonplace in the tobacco sector. At the same time however, tobacco represents the bulk for agricultural exports and foreign income for poor countries like Malawi and Zimbabwe.
The globalization of the tobacco industry may create the basis for new forms of coalition among tobacco control advocates and unions. This may include negotiation of a long-term “grand bargain” based on plans for phasing out tobacco production while providing alternative forms of employment for tobacco workers and protecting their health in the workplace in the meantime.
GLS is in the process of pulling together a Global Labor and Tobacco Control Project to help labor unions around the world intelligently address these concerns and to build bridges between organized labor and the tobacco control movement. We’ll let you know how it goes.