Tobacco industry criticized for failing to protect its employees from Covid19

The global tobacco industry watchdog STOP And Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) warn of exposure to Covid19 of employees working for the tobacco industry. This alert comes as Two workers died of COVID19 and dozens more have tested positive at HM Sampoerna, a Philip Morris International subsidiary in Indonesia. Nine workers at the factory in Rungkut district of Surabaya, East Java, which employs at least 500 people, have been admitted to hospital, according to reports in the Jakarta Post. The Sampoerna factory closed on April 27, more than three weeks after a worker first reported symptoms (on April 2), and nearly two weeks after the worker's death (around April 18). Earlier in April, workers at the Ibadan cigarette factory in Oyo State, Nigeria, where social distancing measures were to be implemented, accused the management of British American Tobacco to expose them to the risk of COVID19 infection. A similar complaint was reported in Zimbabwe, where the National Union of Tobacco and Allied Trades demanded the Suspension of annual tobacco auctions while the country was in a national lockdown.

A history of human rights abuses and unsafe labor practices and working conditions

Even before the COVID-19 outbreak, tobacco companies have been accused of several cases of inhumane and dangerous working conditions. In 2019, human rights lawyers filed a complaint on behalf of tobacco producers in MalawiIn 2010, Human Rights Watch exposed child labor on farms that supplied tobacco to Philip Morris International in Kazakhstan.[2]. In Nigeria, laid-off workers[3] British American Tobacco Ibadan factory workers had earlier asked the Nigerian government to prosecute the company for inhumane treatment, including mass exposure to raw tobacco leaves causing nicotine poisoning in poorly ventilated premises. By exposing their employees and, beyond that, the rest of the population, to a greater risk of coronavirus, the tobacco industry is once again demonstrating its total disregard for health, life and human rights. And all this to ensure the supply of a product that kills when consumed in exactly the way the industry wants it to. " said Laurent Huber, executive director of Actions on Smoking in Health. Governments must ensure that tobacco companies and their suppliers respect physical distancing and other measures to slow the spread of the coronavirus.©Tobacco Free Generation

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[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/14/business/global/14smoke.html[3] https://www.environewsnigeria.com/suffered-work-related-illnesses-fired/©National Committee Against Smoking |