Tied Up In Notts
Nottinghamshire County Council plans employee ecig ban
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by Dave Cross
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The proposal will impact on over 1,000 of their 9,000 employees who are estimated to be current smokers and/or ecig users. The ban will cover any employee in uniform, in any authority-owned building, on any land or in any vehicle. Incredibly, Nottinghamshire County Council (NCC) also state that the ban will apply to employees on their way to or from work as well.
Vaping workers will have to remove their uniform and walk away from council property in order to use their devices during their lunch breaks – but they will be barred from doing this during their morning and afternoon breaks.
NCC announced their intention to place employees into a formal disciplinary process if they are caught vaping during working hours. Nottingham Post reported one unnamed ecig user as saying “the decision was ‘crazy’.”
They posed the obvious question: "How will they police it? And what happens next – will I have to go on the treadmill for 15 minutes every lunchtime? It's ridiculous. As things stand you can go to McDonald's and get ten burgers on flexi-time but I can't use my e-cigarette which has recently been recognised as a productive nicotine replacement therapy."
Brian Fitzpatrick, Unison services conditions officer, agreed: “I don't see yet how they could enforce it. If you're in the parks department, you won't be able to even when you're outside.” Fitzpatrick announced that union members would be consulted on what action they feel is appropriate by way of response.
Planet of the Vapes contacted NCC to find out the reasoning for including vaping and how they planned to administer the ban and disciplinary procedure but they refused to comment. NCC’s John Tomlinson did tell local media: “We are trying to be a supportive employer and have a duty of care to protect the health of our employees.” He believes that the council has a duty to force employees to “become better role models for their children”.
What is disappointing is the support Professor John Britton has given the proposal. Previously, the prof has spoken in favour of the adoption of vaping as a harm reduction strategy but made no mention of it when saying: “The health benefits will be huge because people have to go for those hours without smoking. It is likely it will lead to people giving up. When smoke-free policies came in for indoor areas there was a surge of people quitting.”
ASH’s Deborah Arnott told the Guardian: “we don’t think it’s appropriate to include electronic cigarettes, as vaping does not cause the damage that smoking does, and the most common reason given by people who use these devices is to help them quit smoking.”
The only respite for vaporing employees is that the council acknowledge they have to maintain an open door policy for electronic cigarettes pending a review to officially licence them. Unfortunately this will probably come too late and other councils are bound to follow Nottingham’s lead.
“A good employer recognises everyone is different,” adds Simon Clark, FOREST. “Everyone is entitled to a break. How people spend it should be up to them.” Will NCC decide to dictate how people eat, drink and spend their weekends next?
Dave Cross
Journalist at POTVDave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous start-ups to develop content for their websites.
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