The law and worker's health
Heather is one of hundreds of
Canadians who become fatally ill as a result of breathing
second-hand smoke each year.
There is no safe level of
exposure to second-hand cigarette smoke.
There are hundreds of
poisonous chemicals in tobacco smoke, several of which have been
determined by Canadian occupational health authorities to be so
dangerous that there is no safe level of exposure for workers
(such as benzo-a-pyrene, or 4-amino-biphenyl).
Health Canada estimates that
300 Canadians die from lung cancer caused by second-hand smoke,
and another 800 die from passive-smoking induced heart disease.
Neither Health Canada nor Labour Canada had determined how many of
those deaths result from exposure to smoke at home, and how many
are due to exposure to smoke at work.
Ironically, even though
second-hand smoke is a common contaminant in work environments,
exposure to cigarette smoke has excluded from the application of
occupational health for decades. There are many reasons for
this, including:
-
the development of labour
law through negotiations between government, unions
and employers. Unions and employers groups have rarely
identified cigarette smoke as a priority.
-
the historical mindset that
health and safety regulations were intended to cover substances
introduced by employers, and cigarette smoke in traditional
workplaces often originated with employees.
-
intensive lobbying by
tobacco companies and their allied restaurant and bar
associations.
-
the relatively recent
scientific consensus on cigarette smoke, and the slow pace in
which occupational law is developed.
-
the deliberate decisions of
governments to exclude hospitality workers from protection (as
in the case of the B.C. workers compensation board).
For further information on
how the law protects (or fails to protect) workers from second
hand smoke, see the following PSC fact-sheets:
