TOP STORY: 'No room for smokers'

Doug laing
A purpose-built smokers' room and part of a workers' contract at a major Hastings work site are under threat because of a Ministry of Health decision to prosecute the employers over smoking regulations.
The smokers' room was built 18 months ago as part of an amenities block costing more than a million dollars at Progressive Meats, in Kelfield Place.
The company is defending the case, which will be called for the first time in the Hastings District Court on August 15. The maximum fine is $4000.
The company, like Meat Union Aotearoa, believes the smoking room, a condition of the company's contract with the workers, is legal.
The Ministry of Health said the company was being charged with failing to take all necessary steps to provide workers with a smoke-free workplace.
The defence is based on whether the room is a workplace under the controversial anti-smoking regulations which came into force last December, and, leading up to the case, opinion has been sought from the Crown Law Office.
Company managing director Craig Hickson was unable to be contacted today by Hawke's Bay Today but was understood to be declining comment pending the historic court action.
The workers' representative, Meat Union Aotearoa area organiser Eric Mischefski, said the room was big enough for 15-20 workers, purpose-built, with extractor fans.
"When you go in there, you don't see a cloud of smoke, or smell smoke," he said. "You get the smell of cigarettes. "The room is used for nothing else but smoking. No one has to go in there to sanitise it, no one has to go in there to clean it."
The smokers clean the room and the ashtrays. Mr Mischefski said the union had negotiated with the company to include the facilities in the workers' contract, and he was pleased they had been provided, and that the company was defending the action.
"It shows that they do care about the rights of their staff," he said. The action is being closely watched by a guarded business sector, and Business New Zealand director Phil O'Reilly, of Wellington, was last night quoted as saying it would be "a bit sad" if the company was put to the cost of clarifying what was "an unclear law".
There have been estimates that smokers make up as much as half of the staff, which usually numbers about 200.
Mr Mischefski said that if staff had to go outside to smoke, they would have to change out of specialised working gear, and leave the site. There would be follow-on problems of things which were "not a good look" for a company which had regular international visitors - the sight of workers outside, smoking, and discarded cigarette butts.