Pub and club workers urged to help push for total smoking ban

June 24, 2005 - PRESS RELEASE FROM THE TUC

Pub and club workers in England are being urged by the TUC today to tell Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt exactly what they think of her plans to exempt drinking establishments that don't serve food from the Government's proposed ban on smoking in the workplace.

Last week the Government announced the beginning of two-month consultation period covering how a smoking ban might work in England, and the TUC wants pub and club workers to make sure that their smoky work experiences are not overlooked in the exercise.

So that workers can email the consultation with what it can be like to work a shift in a bar thick with smoke, the TUC has set up a special website that will allow individuals either to send a standard letter calling for a total ban or submit their own comments.

The TUC website reminds pub and club workers that one of them dies every week as a result of inhaling other people's smoke at work. Many thousands more are made ill and others are forced to leave their jobs for good because asthma or other breathing difficulties caused by cigarettes have made it impossible for them to work.

TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said: 'For any smoking ban to be effective it must cover all workplaces. The pub and club workers of establishments that don't serve food deserve as much protection from cancer-causing smoke as everyone else.

'Stopping smokers from puffing away at the bar will not stop bar workers suffering the ill-effects of passive smoking, and nor will improved ventilation help much. A total ban on smoking is the only solution and I urge all pub and club staff to email in and help us change the Secretary of State's mind.'