Перевод текстов "Intellectual Property" и "A Case For Smokeless Zones" на русский язык, страница 2

A Case For Smokeless Zones

(ALAN ROAD reports on the new moves to ban smoking in Britain's offices). When tobacco clouds from the pipe of a pensive draftsman activated the smoke detection system in an office of a giant multinational company recently, fire appliances were dispatched from three neighbouring authorities to deal with the imagined danger.

While medical research has conclusively identified tobacco as a threat to the smoker's own health, the dangers to innocent bystanders of what might be called nicotine fallout have yet to be proved beyond doubt. This has not prevented unilateralists calling for the banning of smoking in an increasing number of offices.

David Simpson, a director of ASH, the anti-tobacco group, says that unsolicited inquiries from the public about workplace policies on smoking are growing apace. "In the past six months a lot more calls have been coming from the employers' side," he pointed out.

Indeed, so impressed have he and his colleagues been by this phenomenon that they are planning to set up a management consultancy to advise large companies on formulating no-smoking policies.

Staff in the Normaliar Garrett product support division at Bourne-mouth Airport were happy enough to welcome the introduction of a no-smoking rule for their newly-opened office accommodation, says personnel manager Andy Braley. All too many employers seem more concerned with the wellbeing of the hi-tech equipment than of their staff. Some, says David Simpson, ignore doctors' pleas that certain workers should not be obliged to share offices with the smokers. "Yet down the corridor they have installed a mainframe computer and readily enforce a smoking ban there".

Nor are trade unions above criticism. One has threatened legal action against a secretary who collated photographic evidence of the caused by smokers in her office. Local authorities have led the way with the introduction of office smoking bans.

Ashfold Borough Council are in the middle of a two-year transition period. "It may sound long-winded," says personnel officer John Styles, "but the only way a decision can be enforced is if it is backed up with a collective agreement." And so a detailed questionnaire was circulated to the counsil's500 office workers, who opted - with very few exceptions - for a smoking ban.

Lawyer Gillion Howard approves of Ashford's softly-softly appro-ach. "You can't introduce a no-smoking rule overnight," she told me. A tribunal recently ruled that a firm of Birmingham insurance brokers who had done just that were in breach of contract, said Ms Howard, who specialises in occupational health matters and has advised a number of Industrial Society clients on smoking policies.

Pipe dream

"If you're going to have a rule that a whole building goes non-smoking, then you've got to allow employees to go into the open air and have a drag," she warned.

"While she concerned that the dangers of passive smoking are yet to be recognized by the courts, she forecast that the day will come when will be so certain and so well-publicised in the press that employers will be obliged to take precautionary measures to protect their non-smoking. Meanwhile, she urges employers not to postpone action till then.

One positive step they can take immediately is to recruit only non - smokers. The Royal College of Nursing who recently advertised the post of PA to the general secretary, stipulated that applications from smokers would not be welcome , she recalled. " It is lawful to refuse to employ someone because they smoke," Miss Howard emphasised. "There is no anti-discrimination legislation for smokers." Contracts for new recruits could, therefore, contain an undertaking that they agree to no-smoking rules. "If employees break the terms of that contract, they can be counselled, warned verbally and in writing and then dismissed,"

Clean air for non-smokers may soon no longer be a pipe dream.

Случай Для Бездымных Зон

(АЛАН РОАД сообщает относительно новых шагов, чтобы запретить курение в британских офисах). Когда облака табака от трубы задумчивого чертежника активизировали систему обнаружения дыма в офисе гигантской многонациональной компании недавно, приборы огня были посланы от трех соседних властей, чтобы иметь дело с предполагаемой опасностью.