Quote:
Originally posted by bilmore
I'll agree with everything you said in your post, but I just want to point out that our entire worker-protection system is sort of built around the concept that we don't let higher pay or nicer conditions or shorter hours or . . . whatever . . . substitute for worker safety. Thus, you can't pay your steelworkers extra if they're willing to forgo the costly tying-off process for high work, and you can't let them have shorter shifts if you can take those pesky and speed-killing guards off of their presses, and the like.
So, the "higher-compensation-from-smokers" argument is never gonna fly. It will probably come down to the eventual answer to the "what does second-hand smoke do to your health" question.
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But I think the two are related. One has to assume that second-hand smoke harms the waitstaff (beyond normal wear and tear associated with just fucking living and being around all of the other shit every day) to argue that they are being paid more to risk their health. If we just assume that being around smoke sucks if you don't like smoke, willing to be paid more to do it is okay. There are studies showing that working the overnight shift fucks with a person's internal clock and may even cause health problems -- does that mean that paying people a premium for working the midnight shift should not be allowed? Or maybe that businesses cannot run a midnight shift? What about the health problems caused by interns working those "48 hour" shifts with little or no sleep or working the ER overnight; should we prevent it?
Not providing safety equipment is one thing while using worker safety to ban behavior that has not been absolutely proven to cause unacceptable harm is another.
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