Firefighters Unions & Presumptive Disability: Common Interests, Mutual Advantage, & Future Alliance Opportunitie

1. Firefighters Unions & Presumptive Disability:Common Interests, Mutual Advantage, & Future Alliance Opportunities Graham Kelder National Conference on Tobacco or Health May 6, 2005

2. Theoretical Framework: • Political coalitions are created and sustained when they help member organizations overcome institutional barriers to policy enactment. (Hula, 1999) • Most tobacco control coalitions rely on the shared goal commitment of members as the basis for forming coalitions.

3. Framework (cont’d) • The tobacco industry uses a more sophisticated coalition-formation model • The tobacco industry builds coalitions around • Common interests or mutual advantages to coalition members • Framing issues to highlight common interests or mutual advantages

4. Framework (cont’d) • Tobacco control advocates can greatly strengthen their coalition-building abilities by adopting the more sophisticated approach used by the tobacco industry. • They, too, can learn to build coalitions around • Common interests or mutual advantages to coalition members • Framing issues to highlight common interests or mutual advantages

5. Coalition-Building Case Study: Firefighters Unions, the Tobacco Industry, Presumptive Disability, and 24-Hour Smoking Bans

6. What is Presumptive Disability? • Firefighters are exposed on a daily basis to stress, smoke, heat, and various toxic substances. • As a result, firefighters are far more likely to contract heart disease, lung disease and cancer than other workers. • Heart disease, lung disease and cancer are now among the leading causes of death and disability for firefighters.

7. Presumptive Disability (cont’d) • In recognition of this linkage, many states have enacted “presumptive disability” laws. • These laws state that cardiovascular diseases and certain cancers are presumed to be job-related for purposes of workers compensation and disability retirement unless the firefighter’s employer can prove otherwise.

8. Presumptive Disability (cont’d) • Such presumptive disability laws were passed in 34 states in 1972-73, and in many other states subsequent to this period of time. • Firefighters unions pushed hard for these laws.

9. Presumptive Disability (cont’d) • Any problems with presumptive disability from the standpoint of the town, city, and state entities that have to pay for the larger disability pensions that result?

10. Presumptive Disability (cont’d) • Presumptive disability can be expensive, especially if you don’t control for exacerbating factors such as smoking. • So, beginning in 1979, many towns, cities, and states began to pass 24-hour smoking bans that prohibited firefighters (or, at the very least, new hires) from smoking on or off the job

11. Tobacco Industry Reaction • The tobacco industry was predictably opposed to these bans, because the industry knew that even lenient smoking restrictions could cost the tobacco industry hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue each year. (521040556/0563)

12. Firefighters’ Unions & 24-Hour Smoking Bans • Where did this issue play itself out? • How do you think firefighters’ unions reacted to the imposition of these 24-hour smoking bans?

13. Union Activity Occurs at Many Levels • These are both sort of trick questions. • Lesson #1 in working with unions is that union activity takes place at many different levels: • International • National • Statewide • Local

14. Union Activity at Many Levels (cont’d) • This is something the tobacco industry learned early on • In February 1984, a tobacco industry consultant told his colleagues, “It’s fine to know a Lane Kirkland…but local issues require local union assistance. A local union official can be of great assistance if approached correctly.”

15. Union Activity at Many Levels (cont’d) • The issue of 24-hour smoking bans played out at many levels: • State • Local • Not just in unions but in organizations like • State AFL-CIOs • COSH groups

16. Union Activity at Many Levels (cont’d) • The tobacco industry knows the multiple levels on which unions can be approached. • Tobacco control advocates need to know this, too  Labor 101 paper – “How to Work with Labor” – on OLTCN web site at www.laborandtobacco.org

17. Labor Not Monolithic • Lesson #2 in working with unions is that organized labor and the unions that make up the organized labor movement are not monolithic. • Again, our friends in the tobacco industry know this:

18. Labor Not Monolithic (cont’d) • At a 1983 training session for Tobacco Institute personnel on working with unions, another industry consultant, stated: “…[T]the labor movement is not a monolith but is comprised of unions and individuals representing a broad spectrum of political, economic, and social views.”

19. Labor Not Monolithic (cont’d) • There is no “labor” position on any tobacco control issue. • There are only the positions of the state, local, and national unions and other organizations that comprise the organized labor movement.

20. Labor Not Monolithic • The reaction of various state and local firefighters’ unions to the issue of 24-hour smoking bans varied greatly – for example: • ’79 Virginia: union opposed because rule intrusive into off-duty life

21. Labor Not Monolithic (cont’d) • ’81 San Francisco: union insisted on its right to bargain on this issue • ’87 Los Angeles: union supported ban because it viewed it as a “health and safety” issue • ’87 Chicago: union supported of ban • ’89 Maryland: union saw ban as “invasion of privacy”

22. Know Your Union Allies’ Interests and Concerns • The only way to effectively partner with a union is by becoming familiar with the concerns and issues – both tobacco and non-tobacco -- that particular union considers important. • The tobacco industry has become quite adept at educating itself about the needs and interests of potential union allies.

23. Know Your Allies (cont’d) • As one industry consultant put it in 1982, “[We] must reach out to…labor-oriented groups and engage in meaningful vote-trading…. • …it is important for [us] to assist some of these potential allies on votes that are of no concern to [us], but are of vital importance to these other groups.”

24. What are some traditional union interests and concerns that might come into play on the issue of 24-hour smoking bans?

25. Unions Want to Be Involved in Decision-making • Most unions object to unilateral decision-making by management over employee worksites. • This is not unexpected • The whole point of organizing in the first place is to give workers a voice in their work life and to prevent such unilateral decision-making by management

26. Decision-making (cont’d) • Most 24-hour smoking bans were being unilaterally imposed by management. • Some unions were not opposed to 24-hour bans per se, but to this unilateral imposition of them. • Involving the union is especially important when it comes to health promotion issues. Why?

27. Health Promotion Issues Can Be a Dodge for Workplace Safety Issues • When faced with workplace safety issues, employers sometimes seek to blame employee ill health not on workplace toxins or dangers, but on some other substance. • Employers look for some other “promotable villain.” (Bowker, 2003)

28. Dodging Workplace Safety Issues (cont’d) • For example, it is almost a tradition for American presidents, when facing dropping poll numbers due to poor domestic or economic performance, to find a “promotable villain” in a foreign tyrant who needs a good thrashing.

29. Dodging Workplace Safety Issues (cont’d) • In the 1970s, John-Mansville tried to deflect attention from the workplace hazard posed by asbestos by holding up cigarettes as a “promotable villain.” • It’s not good old asbestos that’s giving you lung cancer, it’s cigarettes. (C’mon, asbestos is good for you! Put some fiber in your diet!)

30. Dodging Workplace Safety Issues (cont’d) • Due to management’s use of health promotion as a way to dodge workplace safety issues, some unions may be suspicious of health promotion activities like curbing tobacco use.

31. Privacy Issues (cont’d) • Unions are also afraid of “the slippery slope” when it comes to workplace rules that intrude on the lives of their members outside of work. • Blue-collar workers are understandably sensitive to loss of control over their private lives.

32. Privacy Issues (cont’d) • What follows from 24-hour smoking bans? • Bans on eating red meat? • Bans on riding motorcycles? • Bans on playing certain kinds of sports?

33. Privacy Issues (cont’d) • The tobacco industry played on these traditional union concerns about privacy and discrimination in trying to secure union opposition to 24-hour smoking bans.

34. 6/29/82 Memo from Covington & Burling to Tobacco Institute (TIMN_356952/6964) • Question posed by TI: whether private employer policies against employing people who smoke (even if they do not smoke on the job) may be successfully challenged as violations of federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination.

35. ‘82 Memo from Covington & Burling (cont’d) (TIMN_356952/6964) • Answer: “…[N]o federal statute or judicial or administrative authority appears to prohibit anti-smoker policies per se, and it is unlikely that any court or administrative agency would make such a ruling.”

36. Smoker Anti-discrimination Legislation • Since there was no cognizable federal claim, the tobacco industry waged a campaign against 24-hour smoking bans by pushing smoker anti-discrimination and privacy legislation in many state legislatures • They sought to enlist firefighters’ unions in this effort by the way they framed the issue.

37. 1992 Tobacco Institute Memo (TIMS00024543/4544) • "Employment policies that discriminate against smokers are…a clear violation of personal privacy."

38. 1992 Memo (cont’d) (TIMS00024543/4544) • "Policies that allow an employer to discharge an individual for because he or she smokes or has an occasional drink during time away from the job open the door to measures that may have a chilling effect on other protected employee activities. Blue collar workers in particular are vulnerable to seemingly neutral

39. 1992 Memo (cont’d) (TIMS00024543/4544) • discriminatory policies that may be used selectively as those viewed as "troublesome" by employers. Workers who engage in otherwise protected activities such as political advocacy or union participation, could easily be disciplined or discharged under the pretext of anti-smoker policies."

40. 1992 Memo (cont’d) (TIMS00024543/4544) • Discrimination – particularly when a product of unilateral action by an employer – undermines basic employee and collective bargaining rights."

41. Lessons learned: • Shared goal commitment not essential to coalition-formation • Coalitions can be formed around • Common interests or mutual advantages to coalition members • Framing issues to highlight common interests or mutual advantages

42. Lessons learned (cont.): • Union activity takes place at many different levels: • International • National • Statewide • Local • Choose the correct level of activity in forging alliances.

43. Lessons learned (cont.): • Organized labor and the unions that make up the organized labor movement are not monolithic. • There is no “labor” position on any tobacco control issue. • There are only the positions of state, local, and national unions and other labor organizations on particular tobacco control issues.

44. Lessons learned (cont.): • The only way to effectively partner with a union is by becoming familiar with the concerns and issues – tobacco and non-tobacco – that particular union considers important. • Integrate health promotion with workplace safety. • Be aware of traditional union concerns about power, participation in decision-making, and privacy.

45. Visit Our Website www.laborandtobacco.org