Labor & Employment Law

Keep on Trucking but Not Smoking in your Truck

By Michael Fitzgibbon

The big news (also here) is the awarding of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama and that a trucker was fined $305 under the Smoke-Free Ontario Act for smoking in the workplace (his truck). 

The Act provides that "no person shall smoke tobacco or hold lighted tobacco in any enclosed public place or enclosed workplace" and an enclosed workplace is defined as:

(a) the inside of any place, building or structure or vehicle or conveyance or a part of any of them,

(i) that is covered by a roof,

(ii) that employees work in or frequent during the course of their employment whether or not they are acting in the course of their employment at the time, and

(iii) that is not primarily a private dwelling, or

(b) a prescribed place;

So, there you have it.  Will this become the norm (to date such tickets have been rare).  How the workplace is defined and whether the law applies to a federally regulated trucking company will no doubt have some people talking for some time.

Full post as published by Thoughts from a Management Lawyer on October 09, 2009 (boomark / email).