(AP) Atlantic City, New Jersey Tobacco corporations looking for friends in the fight against smoking limits have won over the primary staff union, according to workers advocating for an end to smoking in Atlantic City casinos.
On Monday, an official from a union that supports the anti-smoking campaign demanded that Donna DeCaprio, the leader of the Atlantic City casino workers’ union, step down for not shielding her members from the risks of secondhand smoke.
DeCaprio is the president of the Unite Here union’s Local 54, which is against a smoking ban because it believes that smokers would steal so much money from other establishments that it would force one or more casinos to close, which would mean thousands of workers would lose their jobs.
Ray Jensen, assistant director of United Auto Workers Region 9, which represents dealers at three casinos in Atlantic City and is involved in a case to have the courts compel the gaming halls to ban smoking, said she should feel ashamed of herself. Her union card should be turned in.
Improvements to the working environment are necessary, according to DeCaprio, who stated that her union supports the health and safety of its members.
She stated that a balance must be struck between maintaining decent jobs and safeguarding the health of employees. We are shielding our members from numerous job losses and casino closures. The UAW is willing to jeopardize 25,000 solid, benefit-paying jobs and the whole casino sector.
Despite taking up only 25% of the casino floor, DeCaprio claimed that smoking areas generate between 50% and 72% of all in-person casino revenue in Atlantic City.
According to her, a plan that would enhance ventilation in casinos and prohibit any employee from being forced to work in a smoking area against their will is supported by her union and the great majority of the labor movement.
In Atlantic City casinos and other jurisdictions where employees have voiced concerns about secondhand smoke, smoking bans are among the most contentious topics. Similar campaigns are being carried out in Virginia, Kansas, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island.
For the past four years, employees have been fighting to remove a clean air code exemption that permits smoking inside the nine casinos in New Jersey. They claim that secondhand smoking exposure is causing them or their coworkers to develop heart disease, cancer, and other illnesses.
Democratic Governor Phil Murphy has stated that if a law to ban smoking at casinos makes it to his desk, he will sign it.
Local 54 and the casinos are against the plan, claiming it will result in the loss of thousands of jobs in Atlantic City and lower tax revenue for state programs for the elderly and disabled.
The employees’ organization, CEASE (Casino Employees Against Smoking’s Effects), appealed a court decision in August that permitted smoking in the nine casinos on Monday.
On Monday, the New Jersey Casino Association chose not to comment.
According to lawyer Nancy Erika Smith, tobacco firms began targeting hospitality labor unions as possible allies in 1993 in an effort to push back against smoking prohibitions in the restaurant and hotel sectors. A forerunner of the Unite Here union, the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union, was part of that endeavor.
In a document to Philip Morris corporations that was made public amid multiple states’ litigation against tobacco corporations, a public relations agency stated that HERE and the associated AFL-CIO affiliates are important friends that should be fostered as backers of the battle to block smoking bans. Having HERE as an ally in this endeavor would be a very powerful voice, according to the memo.
According to another document referenced in Monday’s appeal, HERE was a member of a 12-member alliance that included labor unions and argued for better indoor ventilation as an alternative to government-imposed smoking bans as early as 2001.
The anti-smoking activists point to a 2022 study by the consulting firm C3 Gaming, based in Las Vegas, which indicates those casinos that banned smoking seem to be doing better than those that still let it.
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