Fight to Protect Public Health and Workers’ Rights Continues Despite Senate Obstruction
Des Moines, IA —Yesterday, a subcommittee of the Iowa House of Representatives Committee on Commerce advanced HF 781, a bill to eliminate the exemption of gaming floors from the state’s Smokefree Air Act. The bill will now proceed to a full committee vote this afternoon.
“Thank you to Representatives Lundgren, Baeth, and Young for making the commonsense decision to pass HF 781 out of subcommittee yesterday,” said Traci Kennedy, Midwest States Strategist for Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights (ANR). “For more than 15 years, Iowa’s smokefree law has ensured clean indoor air in most workplaces — but casino workers have been left behind. Iowa is one of the last states in the region that still forces casino workers to breathe secondhand smoke while on the job. 86% of Iowans are nonsmokers, and yet casinos still cater to the other 14%. The fact that workers have to endure toxic secondhand smoke day in and day out because the casino industry insists upon a false narrative that smokefree policies would harm business is deplorable. The only way for Iowa lawmakers to protect their citizens is to pass HF 781 and close the casino smoking loophole once and for all. We urge the full House Committee on Commerce to vote yes and pass the bill to the full House for consideration.”
Yesterday’s hearing in the Iowa House of Representatives showed that smokefree casinos is gaining momentum with bipartisan support in Iowa and allowed legislators a chance to right the Iowa Senate’s wrong from last week. On January 26, senators in the State Government subcommittee rejected SF 2051, continuing the outdated practice of allowing smoking to permeate through casino air in Iowa. Despite insisting that “smoking is bad” and that it was an “absurdity” to leave casinos out of the original Smokefree Air Act, Subcommittee Ranking Member Senator Tony Bisignano voted against the bill — a nonsense decision that flies in the face of public health and workers’ rights.
Senator Bisignano serves on the board of directors for Prairie Meadows casino in Des Moines, a casino that has perpetuated the false narrative that smokefree policies harm business. This conflict of interest was apparent during last week’s hearing, where the senator advanced misleading arguments to support the casino industry’s lies about economic impact. During the hearing, Senator Bisignano discussed his concern over the “unborn child” of a pregnant cocktail waitress he recently witnessed working in the smoking section of an Iowa casino. However, the senator went on to say that the waitress wished to keep working in the smoking section as she made extra tips there — thus propagating the false claim that casino workers benefit from toxic secondhand smoke.
Senator Bisignano ignores the fact that the waitress was given simply an illusion of a choice. The fact that pregnant workers have to breathe in toxic air day in and day out, putting themselves and their families at risk, all to make a living is unacceptable. If Iowa’s casino industry implemented a smokefree policy, patrons would adjust their practices and workers would no longer have to make an impossible, potentially fatal, choice.
It is time for casino workers to finally be represented in the state’s Smokefree Air Act and end the outdated practice of sacrificing public health and workers’ rights. ANR urges the House Committee on Commerce to vote yes on HF 781 today and to act swiftly by calling for a full Iowa House floor vote on the bill immediately.
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Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights (ANR) sister organization to ANR Foundation, is a member-supported, non-profit advocacy group that has been working for 50 years to protect everyone’s right to breathe nontoxic air in workplaces and public places, from offices and airplanes to restaurants, bars, and casinos. ANR has continuously shined a light on the tobacco industry’s interference with sound and life-saving public health measures and successfully protected 61% of the population with local or statewide smokefree workplace, restaurant, and bar laws. ANR aims to close gaps in smokefree protections for workers in all workplaces, including bars, music venues, casinos, and hotels. For more information, please visit https://nonsmokersrights.org and https://smokefreecasinos.org.
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