Outdoors or Indoors: OPPD says no to tobacco on the job (union files suit for smokers)

[Omaha Steve]

http://omaha.com/article/20090612/NEWS01/306129939

Published Friday June 12, 2009
Outdoors or Indoors: OPPD says no to tobacco on the job

BY TODD COOPER
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

And you thought only Nebraska's new law put the fire hose to workplace smoking.

On June 1 — the day the state's ban on smoking inside workplaces went into effect — the Omaha Public Power District banned the use of cigarettes and chewing tobacco on the job, even outside.

In effect, none of the utility's 2,400 workers — not even the worker high atop a power pole — can take a puff or pinch a snuff on the clock.

Now, two of the utility's major unions have filed a lawsuit that says the ban far exceeded state law and, therefore, violated the unions' contracts with the utility.
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The lawsuit is the first to emerge as the smoke clears after the state ban.

The state ban outlaws smoking in indoor workplaces, with a few exceptions, but says nothing about chewing tobacco or smoking outside.

FULL story at link.

[msongs]

1. workers aren't paid to practice their drug addictions on company time. There's a lot

of things one might not be able to do on company time for that matter.

Msongs

[teach1st]

2. Get rid of all of the coffee makers then

caffeine = drug