CEASE: As Casino Workers Continue to Get Sick, Gov. Murphy Prioritizes Corporate Interests and Perceived Profits
Atlantic City, NJ — Speaking on WHYY yesterday, Governor Murphy once again let down casino workers by failing to forcefully advocate for a bill to eliminate indoor smoking in New Jersey casinos. In response, Lamont White, co-founder of CEASE and table games dealer in Atlantic City, issued the following statement:
“Governor Murphy’s comments are deeply disappointing. He keeps saying he’d sign a bill if it reaches his desk, but he hasn’t done anything to advocate on workers’ behalf for that bill to get there. The governor is putting the corporate interests and their perceived profits ahead of our health, even as our members continue to get sick with cancer, emphysema, heart disease, COPD and other illnesses linked to secondhand smoke. The governor can and must do more. Our kids, our spouses and our parents depend on us, but we’re the only workers in New Jersey who aren’t protected from deadly secondhand smoke at their jobs. We’ve waited long enough — nearly two decades — and we need our governor to do something about it.”
Listen to Gov. Murphy’s remarks here and see transcript below:
HOST: All right, so we’ve received at least a dozen questions related to this topic, indoor smoking at casinos in Atlantic City, and for context, a judge ruled recently in favor of the casino operators who’ve said that a ban on indoor smoking would hurt their business. The judge specifically ruled that the workers’ reliance on that constitutional right to safety is, quote, not well settled law. So the questions represented by Joanna in Egg Harbor, Nancy in Mount Laurel, not Nancy Solomon, and Nicole in Cape May County. Do you think casino employees have a right to breathe clean air at their workplace like every other person that works indoors? Do you think casino workers have a right to safety? And why don’t you just give the executive order that banned indoor smoking similar to when you did early in the COVID pandemic?
MURPHY: Yeah, because it would be struck down probably within 24 hours is the first answer. I hope folks out there have heard me say this now probably 100 times. If a bill gets to my desk to ban smoking in casinos, I will sign it. I’ve never said otherwise. I’m not sure why all of a sudden the union leader at the UAW who says he can’t wait for me to leave. Okay, sir, I don’t know who you are. God bless you. I wish you well. I hope you have a governor that succeeds me that will sign it as well. I will sign it. We said from the beginning that the overwhelming legal case was not going to be upheld through the judiciary, that this needs a statute. It needs a law. And our folks defended the statute, the current law, rather, because that’s what we do. That’s sort of our obligation. Overwhelmingly, that that’s what we end up doing. It’s not because we took a position on whether there should be smoking or no smoking. I just make two other points that were made here before. There is another union that is measured in the many thousands, which is on the other side of this and that work in these casinos. That is Unite Here Local 54. It’s a different place and folks out there who may not be paying attention to this should know that. This is not an open and shut, one union against everybody else. Secondly, and my friend Joe Vitale won’t like me saying this, there is clearly a health imperative here. That’s pretty obvious. There is the other reality that you’re going to have an impact on business. That doesn’t mean it trumps the health issue. In fact, it could never do that. But folks have to go into this with their eyes open. Again, this is back to union jobs. If those fears are well-founded, that’s also a jobs question that’s at play here. But again, I’ll come back to where I started unequivocally, if a bill gets to my desk, to ban smoking in casinos, I will sign it.
HOST: Why is it that we haven’t seen a bill?
MURPHY: I don’t know. I think I can probably tell you because there are interests on all sides of this and again I’m not saying that I’m disagreeing with the health interest because they’re real. I get it and I feel I have nothing but sympathy for that part of the argument but there are folks who have interests on all sides of this and I’m not sure I have a sense of the prospect for the bill to get to me but I know it picked up some support among Assembly Republicans. I saw a statement earlier this week. I’m not sure that impacts the trajectory of the timing but we shall see.
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Casino Employees Against Smoking (Harmful) Effects (CEASE) is a group of thousands of casino dealers and other frontline gaming workers that formed after indoor smoking returned on July 4, 2021 in Atlantic City, NJ and has expanded to states around the country. CEASE is fighting to permanently remove smoking from our workplaces. For more information, visit ceasesmoking.org.
