This time the special interest funded smoking ban activists (Nicoderm marketing department) may have met their match.
Smoking Ban at Caterpillar Fires up Unions (story link)
Two unions have filed unfair labor practice charges against Caterpillar Inc. for a smoking ban on company property that went into effect June 1.
The United Auto Workers and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers both allege that Peoria, Illinois-based Caterpillar violated the terms of their contracts by unilaterally banning smoking on the company’s property. The unions, which filed their charges separately, say employees have had the smoking privilege detailed in their contract for 60 years.
Additionally, I would encourage the unions to challenge the validity of the state smoking bans altogether; which were implemented to "protect the health of workers from secondhand smoke".
However, air quality testing proves that secondhand smoke levels are 2.6 - 25,000 times SAFER than OSHA workplace air quality regulations.......clearly then, not a workplace health hazard.
Air quality test results by Johns Hopkins University, the American Cancer Society, a Minnesota Environmental Health Department, and various researchers whose testing and report was peer reviewed and published in the esteemed British Medical Journal......prove that secondhand smoke is 2.6 - 25,000 times SAFER than occupational (OSHA) workplace regulations:
http://cleanairquality.blogspot.com/2010/09/new-st-louis-aq-study-published-by.html
http://cleanairquality.blogspot.com/2007/11/johns-hopkins-air-quality-testing-of.html
http://cleanairquality.blogspot.com/2007/04/bmj-published-air-quality-test-results.html
http://cleanairquality.blogspot.com/2004/04/american-cancer-society-test-results.html
http://cleanairquality.blogspot.com/2006/02/air-quality-testing-and-secondhand.html
http://cleanairquality.blogspot.com/2008/03/british-medical-journal-who-conclude.html
All nullify the argument that secondhand smoke is a workplace health hazard.
Especially since federal OSHA regulations trump, or pre-empt, state smoking ban laws which are not based on scientific air quality test results.