**Right now, today, in this here country, the good-ol’-U.S. of A., every single employee works in an environment that is not 100%, absolutely-without-a-doubt free from hazard. Yes, that is pretty broad. It is nonetheless true.
**No, I’m offering a premium to compensate you for what many perceive as a less-than-desirable working condition, similar to a night shift differential.
This is what many business do, right now. Do you understand that?
Please cite a time that an employer asked an employee to sign a paper that says
“I know I am working in an environment that contains a substance that the health establishment has deemed a carcinogen.” or stretch this out to “I know I am doing something hazardous and you will not provide PPE”
Do you understand that?
Of course you are subjected to hazards at work, just as you are on the ride in.
The difference is when it is a known hazard, the employer must provide protection from it.
Buy having them sign you have acknowledged that the hazard exists.
I sure it happens that some employees have taken cash to do things unsafely but that’s why we have codes to protect us from to much of this.
I often get “night shift differential” it’s a nice benefit from the inconvenience of losing sleep, but that’s what it is an inconvenience, not a fatal illness.
And premium pay would not be allowed to circumvent codes.
But it is a slap in the face if I get cancer from my choice to take your kind offer.
Remember it’s not up to the employer to determine the danger of the hazard.
Even if we all agree it’s a lot of hype it the employer can not change this
Read all the posts. No coherent discussion has come from you abou the questions I ask. Ever. Copy/paste a single example? No. Not from this thread you can’t because you haven’t. I’m not jerking you around here, I’m asking a few simple questions and in every single instance you refer back to a law that is in existence, but which is NOT the subject of the debate, as has been pointed out to you repeatedly, or make a comment like “that doesn’t help the waitstaff” which is irrelevant because i have repeatedly explained to you in minute detail how it does help the waitstaff by not exposing them to any hazard whatsoever. rather than address my specific questions, which you have not, you have gone off into your own hijack as to how “employers must insure a safe work environment” Well, first of all, you’re completely wrong in that, as has repeatedly been pointed out to you; it is the employers responsability to make every reasonable effort to insure the work environment to be as safe as possible. There are no guarantees in any workplace that everything is safe, and that’s an irrefutable fact. I know wherof I speak, as I said before, because part of my JOB is doing Osha/Ansi/RIA Risk assessment of workplace situations.
Let me spell this out for you in small simple words you can understand:
I AM PROPOSING THAT TO ELIMINATE SMOKE IN RESTAURANTS, A VENT SYSTEM BE INSTALLED THAT PREVENTS CUSTOMERS, PATRONS, OWNERS, WAITSTAFF, CAMELS, FLEAS, HORSES, GOATS, AND ANY OTHER LIVING CREATURE FROM COMING IN CONTACT WITH SECONDHAND SMOKE. I’ve spelled this out before. I cannot make it any clearer. If you choose to remain on page one of the discussion, where you still don’t have a clue what I’m talking about, that’s not my problem.
b.
And if you read the posts I have agreed if the systems are installed and used properly it sounds like a good answer, my only concern was enforcement, but as you pointed out it could be the health inspector to do this.
My point is that nothing happens without external pressure, and you can bet no owner was about to put this system in until threatened with the choice of No smoking, close or pony up the money to install the PPE.
How come the words are bigger you said, "in small simple words "
many them there words are way to big for me.:rolleyes:
See I can’t even post right
on reflection, let’s put it this way.
a) it is better to ban smoking everywhere and limit the personal freedom of smokers than to make any other cleanup efforts.
b) it is better to mandate ventilation systems that will clean the air in a restaurant so that NO LIVING CREATURE except the smokers can come in contact with the secondhand smoke at any time, or make the restaurant smoke free, at the owner’s discretion, and limit nobody’s personal freedom.
a or b?
By the way,
I can cite hundreds of thousands of times. The issue in question is called an MSDS, a material safety data sheet. Each employee who works in an area where they might be exposed to a chemical or potentially hazardous substance, must read, understand, and sign a release saying he has read and understood the Material Safety Data Sheet for that product. The MSDS gives safety information about the substance and provides safe handling practices. If the employee chooses to avoid those practices, the company can do little about it. List the things that you might consider harmful. Know what a few are? Sawdust. Walnut sawdust can cause some extremely nasty breathing difficulties. As can oak. Pressure treated pine/spruce/fir sawdust are among the worst; they contai arsenides that kill the bugs, and which are not exactly human friendly. Another one: Bleach. Chlorine bleach is nasty as hell. Do you always wear an activated charcoal respirator and safety goggles and gloves when you do laundry? you should. Does your wife
b.
Look, Iwire, as I’ve said, don’t take this personally. I’ve asked a simple question or two. Instead of answering them, you’ve wandered off into barely related hijacks about existing laws, workplace safety et al. Asd I posted above, I really only want the answer to the question: is it better to eliminate smoke by restricting people’s freedom or by not restricting freedom?
b.
Then I am glad you do not do that for my company, our guy cares about us.
I have saved thousands of people from debilitating injury in my work. I can give you their names. Would you like to show me what 'your guy" does? If I was the safety guy where you worked, you wouild constantly be bitching about my safety requirements. I guarantee it.
b.
In fact, I just got an email this moment from my boss, telling me that a TV program (produced by Pat Summerall!)will be shot at one of our customers to show exactly what we do, how much our work has improved safety, increased production, and virtually eliminated workplace injury for hundreds of employees at a west suburban company. If you like, I’ll mail you a link when the show is going to be on.
b.
Billy Rubin, please, give it up. I have. This will go nowhere but round and round and round and round…
Interesting how these cities and states using worker safety has mostly limited their worries to " second hand tobacco smoke". Have they spent any time or energy now , or in the past , on a concern for workers safety in their cities and offered local ordinances aimed at the safety of workers? If they are genuine in motive why do theyt stop there with second hand tobacco smoke. There are also hazards that employees may be exposed to like combustible pollutants from other common sources. I don’t see NYC demanding that these sources be banned because someone may want to work there and has a right to work there in conditions that satisifies their safety concerns.
I believe that this issue is not really about worker safety at all. There are a blue million hazards in many workplaces. And most all could be eliminated or at least almost. The reality being that it is not possible or practicle to do it. Often it is the expense in reducing risk that allows the risk to exist. Now if using expense as a defense works, how can one say that this issue with tobacco smoke is not a political issue. Since it costs the NYC council no money to speak of they will jump on the bandwagon of " protect our workers". I imagine their song would be different if a " worker safety proposal" was suggested that might have a 100 million dollar a year pricetag as a cost to the city. And I too imagine that if polled, NYC workers could come up with a plethora of safety concerns that the council could legislate into existence.
How many of you really believe that suddenly the NYC council became concerned about the respiratory health of workers working in restaurants and bars in the city?
Sounds good, I have a life to get back to:)
Thanks for your viewpoints (you too Billy Rubin) gave me a lot to think about.
Strange we are non smokers and this seems to be important to us.
Not that I’m pro-SSS, but these chemicals are present in trace amounts in just about everything. Most lumber, for example, contains a noticeable amount of arsenic, for example. “Dirt” contains trace amounts of lead, arsenic, ammonia, etc, etc, etc. The question is whether the amounts of these in smoke are dangerous or carcinogenic.
good riddance to bad rubbish.
they should ban smoking in every public place ---- since when did smokers give a damn about anybody but themselves and their habit?
if people want to smoke, they can light up all they want at home, and in their car.
(and if they get caught flicking their butts out the window, they should be fined)
this is long overdue.
I don’t think that’s feasible. I have never been in a restaurant with smoking/non-smoking sections in which the smoke did not get into the non-smoking section. The only reason non-smokers go to such restaurants is because they have no choice. They don’t like it; they simply put up with it, because it’s an unfortunate thing they have to deal with if they want to eat food. Your suggestion seems to be to try to implement some sort of super-ventilation system in restaurants, the likes of which has never been seen before outside of industries that deal with hightly toxic substances, and the resulting regulatory nightmare that goes with it. All because some people feel they need the convenience of lighting up right there at the dinner table, rather than waiting 15 minutes until they’re done eating.
And let’s say we DID enact such a ventilation ordinance. I can guarantee that a large number of business owners will flagrantly violate it. They’re going to see it as a choice between a huge expenditure for their business, or taking a chance on getting fined. A lot of them are going to take a chance. And then the onus falls on the non-smoker to try to get the law enforced. Sorry, but I don’t want to have to call the cops just to go eat a meal without choking. Here’s a much better solution: If you want to smoke, go outside.
I’m also having a problem with the comparisons in this thread between the dangers of second-hand smoke, and dangers that are an INTRINSIC part of a business. Yes, there are certain occupations that carry a risk, such as construction work. There is a danger, and that danger can be minimized, but not completely eliminated. You can’t build a skyscaper without ANY risk. But you CAN run a restaurant without any cigarette smoke, because smoking is not an intrinsic part of operating that business. It is quite easy to cook food, wait tables, and wash dishes WITHOUT smoking a cigarette. So it’s really an unfair comparison. A more fair comparison would be working at a cigarette-testing factory (if there is such a thing). In that case, you could say that cigarette smoke is a legitimate occupational hazard, because you can’t test cigarettes without making smoke.
Thank You!
You can’t run a smoking restaurant without allowing cigarettes.
We don’t need skyscrapers any more than we need smoking restaurants. There’s plenty of unused space in America, we could simply require all buildings to be one or two stories if we decided the risk of working on a skyscraper was too great.