Smoke-Free Workplaces. This is the name of a new campaign by the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) launched on World No Tobacco Day (May 31, 2012). The campaign aims to encourage European employers and employees to implement smoke-free workplaces regardless of the national laws governing smoking in the individual Member States. More than half a million people in the EU die due to smoking every year and approximately 79,000 of these deaths are linked only to environmental tobacco smoke.
The campaign seeks to disprove common myths about smoking in the workplace. It reminds, for example, that no ventilation system can completely eliminate smoke and indoor smoking areas always pollute the air in non-smoking rooms. Locating smoking rooms to doors, windows or ventilations of buildings helps to spread tobacco smoke through drafts. Moreover, smoking rooms expose cleaning workers to smoke.
EU-OSHA has therefore issued leaflets with recommendations for employers, smoking employees, non-smoking employees. The leaflets are available on the EU-OSHA website in 24 languages. You can download the Czech version here an the English version here.
According to the recommendations of the Council of the European Union from 2009, all EU countries should introduce legislation to fully protectof their citizens from exposure to tobacco smoke in enclosed public places, workplaces and public transport by this year. A total ban on smoking in enclosed public places has been introduced only in Belgium, Ireland, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Hungary, Poland, Greece, Slovak Republic, the United Kingdom, Spain and Bulgaria.
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