[SheLion]

ONE person at a plant out of thousands.........Sorry plant workers. I have heard of this before, and boy! Did the guys get the person that did this!

Keep your back covered there, Rossie! Lots of people won't be too happy with YOU!

[SheLion]

Old Rossie better keep her back covered. Pay back sure can be a b*tch!

[cavtrooper21]

I've been off the little death sticks for 6 weeks now. Nothing against smokers, but they STINK....
I never had any idea that I smelled that bad.
Whew!

[cajun-jack]

"working there is my life" "i want to retire there" bull chips...she is hoping to get a check so big lumas fargo has to pick it up and take it to the bank for her and then she can be on oprah, leno and letterman and write a book and star in a movie.

it would really be a shame if she broke a heel off her shoe and fell in front of a speeding metro bus now wouldn't it??

[qam1]

Judd, who doesn't live far from the Fenton auto plant, also hopes she can return to work. "Working there is my life," she said. "I want to retire there."

Yeah right, I am sure they or any other buisness in town will be eager to (re)hire her.

[SVTCobra03]

Ford owns the plant, they can dictate the rules. Thats called property rights.

[metesky]

Rossie Judd, an eight-year veteran on the plant, claimed that workers smoking near her on the floor aggravated her asthma, making it at times impossible to breathe.

Seems to me that Rossie was probably in the UAW, knew she had an existing condition, yet over the course of eight years on the line failed to come to an accommodation with her union "brothers/sisters" and finally had to turn to the law.

I think I can pretzel this enough to lay at least partial blame for this on the shop steward.

[Cultural Jihad]

Well, if you own Ford Motors then you might have a cause to gripe about what standards that private company sets for its employees and visitors.

[Just another Joe]

I'm really tired of people telling me I stink.
F*CK all of you

I'm not saying, and never have said, I should be able to smoke a cigarette, or a pipe, or a cigar, or tire rubber, or oak leaves anywhere I desire.
If the property owner wants to make their business nonsmoking, without government coercion, I have no problem with that.

After the same fashion, if a business owner wants to allow smoking in their business they should have that liberty.

Don't start telling me how ETS kills - The three largest studies done to date have found no statistical evidence that ETS cuases any lasting physical harm to anyone that doesn't have a pre-existing medical condition.

You don't like the smell of tobacco smoke? Fine. Don't go where people smoke tobacco.
Try a little personal responsibility.

For all of you out there that care about my health so much that you would use government coercion to MAKE me stop smoking - F*CK U SOCIALISTIC B*ST*RDS.

[Revolting cat!]

Ford limits where workers can smoke

As long as they don't limit what workers can smoke, the cat's all right with Ford! When is the next model of Edsel coming out?

[RnMomof7]

The GM plant in Buffalo did this a few yeas ago. (because of state laws)

It is so bad in the Socialist Peoples State of NY .. has gotten so bad that in most cases people can not even go to their car in the parking lots to smoke..

[CSM]

"Rossie Judd, an eight-year veteran on the plant, claimed that workers smoking near her on the floor aggravated her asthma, making it at times impossible to breathe."

Sure, the industrial chemicals used in the assembly process have no effect on her asthma!

"Judd filed an unfair labor practice charge and a disability complaint with two federal agencies. Both are pending."

Yep, rather than ask her fellow worker to smoke in another area and work out a way to cover them during a break, she turns to daddy government to protect her. Weakling!

Why is the headline and article focusing on Ford, then the example used is from Chrysler? Seems to be that Judd is the only example that they could find out of the big 3!

[JesseHousman]

The Ford auto plant in Hazelwood started this week to restrict where its 2,500 workers can smoke

Only in Daimler-Chrysler autos.

[chryslerguy]

The bad part of this all is the press is only telling one side of the story, hers. Maybe they should ask those in the plant that have worked in her area and know her. I have known her sinse she was hired in there and i know firsthand what she does. She has had the attitude that if she speaks, you better listen sinse she came here. She always tried to force her convictions on everyone to suit her for years, she cant get along with fellow workers, union, or management. It got to the point she wanted to get even with them because she couldnt get everyone to jump for her, and she even went as far as to tell a few people she was going to make big bucks for it. Does she tell you she use to smoke when she came here? Did she tell you that every break and lunch hour (one half hour) use to be spent in the parking lot in her car with her boyfriend who smokes? I and others have seen her accross the hiway at a bar for hours in a very bad smoke filled invironment that never seem to hurt her. Or how about a feew summers ago when she went to the lake of the ozarks to a union get together where she was smoking all kind of things? This whole thing was set up with the help of a few anti-smoking groups for money and revenge, nothing more. Odd the dusty, dirty, emissions, paint and all the other stuff in the air there doesnt bother her. She went back to work on jan 12, she walked around looking for smokers inside on her breaks and called labor relations to get them, Wednsday she even told a labor rep that a girl just went to the bathroom to smoke and had the labor rep follow her there and looked under the stall door to see if she was smoking! Going too far? You bet! And she wants people to get along with her and be happy?

cg

[HamiltonJay]

Jeez, seems simply from a safety and product quality perspective that the plant should have been a little more restrictive of where people smoke, than simply anywhere paint and or fuel is not present.

[Quix]

MANY weeks ago in a thread far away on FR

http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/post?id=1016581%2C63

I noted that I had written an expert in my network. He finally received my message having left his work email it was addressed to earlier. His reply follows:

Qx

---

I am now ... for Tobacco Prevention and Control at the Hawaii Community Foundation (HCF). Very briefly, the HCF administers the Hawaii Prevention and Control Trust Fund, which receives 12.5% of the funds Hawaii receives each year from the Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) with the big 4 tobacco companies. As Hawaii receives around $35-40 million from the MSA each year, the Tobacco Prevention and Control Trust Fund gets approximately $4-5 million each year. While this is a lot, the CDC recommendation for Hawaii for a comprehensive tobacco control program, based on successful programs in other states, is between $10 and 23 million a year. So the Trust Fund gets about half of the CDC minimum, but this a tremendous improvement of what funds were available previously. My new responsibilities are to translate the strategic directions and funding recommendations made by the Trust Fund 11 person Advisory Board into actual programs.


As for the continued controversy regarding the health effects of second hand smoke (SHS), this continues to be an area where there is a continued, conscious effort to discredit and deny what we really do know. For a long time the tobacco industry has worked to confuse the issue and to continue to challenge the science.

Because up until recently the technology didn't exist to clinically measure any effect of exposure to SHS, most of the early data regarding the health effects of SHS were based on epidemiological studies comparing the onset of disease in people living with smokers with those that did not. The tobacco industry did a very good job in convincing many people that this was simply "juke science."

However, even Philip Morris is now, on their website, is saying the public should be guided by public health officials regarding exposure to SHS (recently they also finally conceded that smoking itself causes serious illness.) I have cut and pasted the language from the PM website below, and you can go to

http://www.pmusa.com/health_issues/secondhand_smoke.asp

as the source.


There are also at least two studies I am aware of that have now clinically demonstrated cardiac output changes as a result of exposure to only 30 minutes of exposure to SHS. I have included links to one of these studies in this email, and have also attached a PDF file that speaks to this.


Link to the summary of July 2001 JAMA article regarding the "Acute Effects of Passive Smoking on the Coronary Circulation in Healthy Young Adults."

http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/short/286/4/436


Another excellent site with numerous links to SHS exposure studies, and documents about what the tobacco industry knew, when they knew, and how they continue to try to confuse the issue is the Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights website at www.no-smoke.org. Click on the "second hand smoke" page.


Another abstract from the Tobacco Control Journal documents how much higher the levels of exposure to SHS is in bars;

http://tc.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/abstract/12/3/333.

The article is entitled "Exposure to secondhand smoke and excess lung cancer mortality risk among workers in the "5 B's": bars, bowling alleys, billiard halls, betting establishments, and bingo parlours; by M Siegel and M Skeer; Boston University School of Public Health, Social and Behavioral Sciences Department, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.


Stanton Glantz's site about second hand smoke and restaurants also has a number of excellent links:

http://www.tobaccoscam.ucsf.edu/resource/resource_health.cfm

including a powerpoint presentation on the sharp decrease of heart attacks when Helena, MT went smoke-free, followed by an increase back to the previous level once the smoke-free ordinance was suspended;

http://www.tobaccoscam.ucsf.edu/pdf/chicago_final_rps.ppt

(this can take awhile to download and open).


I will stop here so as to not overwhelm this email with information. I am happy to provide additional information if you would like -- there really is a tremendous amount of information that documents that exposure to SHS is indeed harmful. However, in spite of this information, those that simply don't want to believe that their smoking can harm others continue to try and discredit this info.

Aloha,
C

---

Information from the Philip Morris website:


Cigarette Smoking and Disease in Smokers


Philip Morris USA agrees with the overwhelming medical and scientific consensus that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema and other serious diseases in smokers. Smokers are far more likely to develop serious diseases, like lung cancer, than non-smokers. There is no safe cigarette.

Secondhand Smoke

Secondhand smoke, also known as environmental tobacco smoke or ETS, is a combination of the smoke coming from the lit end of a cigarette plus the smoke exhaled by a person smoking.


Public health officials have concluded that secondhand smoke from cigarettes causes disease, including lung cancer and heart disease, in non-smoking adults, as well as causes conditions in children such as asthma, respiratory infections, cough, wheeze, otitis media (middle ear infection) and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. In addition, public health officials have concluded that secondhand smoke can exacerbate adult asthma and cause eye, throat and nasal irritation.


Philip Morris USA believes that the public should be guided by the conclusions of public health officials regarding the health effects of secondhand smoke in deciding whether to be in places where secondhand smoke is present, or if they are smokers, when and where to smoke around others. Particular care should be exercised where children are concerned, and adults should avoid smoking around them.


We also believe that the conclusions of public health officials concerning environmental tobacco smoke are sufficient to warrant measures that regulate smoking in public places. We also believe that where smoking is permitted, the government should require the posting of warning notices that communicate public health officials' conclusions that secondhand smoke causes disease in non-smokers.

---

[alaskanfan]

Rossie Judd, an eight-year veteran on the plant, claimed that workers smoking near her on the floor aggravated her asthma, making it at times impossible to breathe.

I have the same bodily response to a co-worker that insists on standing near me and farting. I've complained to management, but since he is my boss they refuse to do anything.

[novacation]

They're trying to keep from getting sued by their own employees.

[JoeGar]

Special smoking rooms will be available.

This was the situation -- AT FIRST -- in the plant where I worked. A few months later, the rules changed and all smoking had to be done outdoors in designated "smoking areas". Another few months later, the 900-acre plant SITE became "smoke free". Smokers had to get into their car and drive off the property in order to smoke. (The good news: Had it not been for those policies, I probably would still be smoking.)

[realpatriot71]

Smoking at work is a right? Hardly! Yeah, this is a BIG Constitutional "set back" when an employer can tell his/her employees that they can or cannot smoke on work property. You want to inhale that noxious crap at home? GREAT! You want to smell like death? GREAT! Enjoy your personal liberty, but please quit trying to make those of us who don't like your nasty habit, enjoy your smoke and your smell.

Get real!

[StriperSniper]

Look out for falling engines!