Posted on: Thursday, June 19, 2003

EDITORIAL
School smoking ban should apply to all

A letter from former Attorney General Margery Bronster published here Tuesday draws attention to an odd situation within our public schools that should be fixed, and fixed fast.

Bronster, now chairwoman of the Tobacco Prevention and Control Advisory Board, notes that members of the United Public Workers union are exempt from a 10-year-old ban on smoking in public schools.

Teachers, supervisory and clerical staff and others are not allowed to smoke on school grounds, but UPW members, who provide custodial, maintenance and other services, are still allowed to smoke.

Our bet is that most UPW members choose voluntarily not to smoke or at least attempt to do it out of sight from students, who are constantly being told that smoking is bad for them.

But kids are smart. And when they get a non-smoking message from an institution where some of the adults smoke, they recognize the hypocrisy right away.

The UPW apparently won the exemption through the collective bargaining process, arguing that the smoking ban amounted to a "change in working conditions."

Now that's a push, since smoking has been banned successfully in all manner of public (and private) buildings throughout the state.

While you can't fault a union for fighting for every dollar it can for its members, UPW's members should voluntarily do the right thing and put out the smokes even as the union and the Department of Education continue their negotiations.

The alternative will be a law that imposes what is now a DOE policy on everyone. If the unions try to challenge that law, it won't have much sympathy from a generation of parents who are trying to keep their kids off tobacco.