Smokin’

Nottingham council is disguising its spiteful attitude towards employees who smoke as caring.  Employees are to be banned from smoking, not just at work, but while going to and from work and this includes electro-fags.

Smoking breaks could be banned for thousands of council employees under new proposals, it has emerged.

Nottinghamshire County Council wants to bar its 9,000 employees from smoking during work time.

Okay, “my gaff, my rules” applies here. If an employer wishes to completely ban smoking on his premises, he can. Those seeking employment with such an organisation may wish to take that into account before signing a contract of employment. However, when taking breaks, if the employee wishes to leave the organisation’s premises, they are free agents and may do as they please.

Not in Nottingham, apparently.

The ban would prevent staff in uniform smoking on their way to and from work, and also extends to e-cigarettes.

This is a step too far. Outside of working hours and the working environment, what people do with their lives is up to them, not the employer. So, once more, we have an employer that seems to think that it owns employees.

Public sector union Unison said the rules would be unenforceable, but the council said it has a “duty of care to protect the health of employees”.

Bollocks! They have a duty of care not to cause harm. There is no duty of care required of an employer to prevent people from lifestyle choices that may harm themselves. In short, if someone smokes it is none of the employer’s damned business – let alone some imagined duty of care to their health. Apart from not damaging it in line with the HASAWA (etc) Act 1974 and as long as it does not impact directly on the work and the safety of others, it is nothing to do with them what people imbibe. It certainly has nothing to do with the employer’s duty of care and it is a corruption of law to suggest that it does.

The local authority said the ban, to include all buildings, land and vehicles, was aimed at boosting its workers’ health, increasing time spent working and reducing levels of sick leave.

Really? And how much higher is the incidence of sickness among smokers than non smokers? And will the council be banning tea and coffee breaks, too?

This is nothing other than a nasty little bit of  puritanism wrapped up as caring when it is nothing of the sort. It is the usual pious, self-righteousness and spiteful priggery that is all too frequently found in those gullible enough to believe the lies, disinformation and junk science spewed out by the public health parasites and anti-smoking zealots in tobacco control.

The council’s deputy director of public health John Tomlinson said smoking was still “public health’s number one enemy” and the local authority was committed to taking action.

If that is even true, then we have bugger all to worry about.

11 Comments

  1. What is this ‘tea break’ ? tea (or coffee) is something quickly taken from a vending machine to be consumed at the desk

  2. This is really the last straw! Nottingham City Council, under JoCo and his fellow communists are doing all they can to destroy our once fair city. The irony is that much of the city’s wealth was created by one of its largest employers, Player’s Tobacco!

    Funny old world, isn’t it?

  3. I trust the great and good of NCC will be extremely happy seeing their taxes rise to cover the loss of revenue from tobacco sales. I trust they will also be happy to wait for those medical operations which are more or less paid for by taxes from tobacco products (the Government receives roughly 10 times more than the cost of treating tobacco related ailments so smokers taxes are also paying for hip replacements, heart bypasses, hernia operations, etc). I don’t smoke but unless people come up and stub their cigarettes out on my face, I have no problem with others inhaling the demon weed. I would rather see someone walking along the street smoking a fag than seeing a fat man in a football shirt waddling down the road trying to stuff a HunkyBurger in his fat gob, so why don’t they ban that?. I understand that NCC is a socialist council and we all know that socialists are so wrapped up in their politically motivated hatred of everything that they hate to see anyone enjoying themselves. Their creed if always “You can’t do that. Someone may be offended.”, whereas it should be, “You choose to be offended. Others choose not to be offended. Get a life.”

  4. “Public sector union Unison said the rules would be unenforceable”

    Is that it? That’s their sole response to this blatant attack on a selected minority group amongst their own membership? That they think it’s “unenforceable?” What a toothless bunch unions are these days. As Bill S points out in his link, a big union like Unison could (and damned well should) very easily make much, much bigger and more threatening noises on behalf of their members than simply expressing a rather wishy-washy view that “it’s unenforceable.” It’ll be perfectly “forceable” if employees remain under threat of losing their jobs, especially if their supposed allies – their union – gives zero indication that they’ll be there to offer any kind of realistic support should NCC invoke any disciplinary action. A considered statement along the lines of: “We feel that this is both unreasonable and unfair to those of our members who choose to smoke in their break times and we have indicated this to NCC, who have refused nonetheless to change their stance on this matter. We will, of course, be fully prepared to support any of our members who are subject to disciplinary procedures in respect of this particularly unjust rule, including legal representation at formal disciplinary hearings and industrial tribunals, if necessary. NCC need to be aware that Unison are simply not prepared for their members to be treated in such an arrogant and unnecessarily harsh fashion,” would have been a more appropriate response from what is supposed to be an organisation dedicated to protecting its members’ rights. But no. What we get is a rather silly (and, without their support, frankly, incorrect) “opinion.” Well, whoopee-doo! I bet the employees at NCC are thoroughly reassured by such a strident and unequivocal statement of their union’s unswerving support …

  5. “This is a step too far. Outside of working hours and the working environment, what people do with their lives is up to them, not the employer.”

    The long, long list of people sacked or demoted for ‘bringing the company into disrepute’ after saying or doing something non-PC outside the workplace rather gives the lie to that, though…

    • It’s still a step too far, though. Outside of work is just that and outside of the jurisdiction of the employer. There are very rare occasions where disrepute applies, but they are far and few between.

  6. They are just following the example of Adolf Hitler, who they seam to admire. You will find lots of his policies emerging from the current crop of two bit politicians.

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