TEACHERS union OELMEK have taken an executive decision to prohibit smoking indoors at schools when the smoking ban comes into effect on January 1 but smoking outside buildings or school grounds has also become an issue due to the bad example it might set for children.
“We have a central decision from the executive council that we want schools to be free of smoke.” said Eleni Semelidou, the President of OELMEK, the secondary teachers’ union. However, the matter is far from settled as a formal question has been presented to the union from a group of teachers who smoke asking for a solution to the problem.
The decision taken by OELMEK”s executive came about after a meeting they had with the Ministry of Health. Whilst smoke-free schools may be a laudable aim, and a decision which was taken as a matter of principle according to Semelidou, the teachers themselves would be unable to smoke outdoors or even outside of the school grounds because of the bad example it would set to schoolchildren.
The issue is due to be discussed at OELMEK’s annual conference on December 17, at which point it is anticipated that a decision will be reached and a resolution to the different positions arrived at. There is currently no indication what this decision may be or what form a proposed solution may take.
Although the smoking ban has been applied across Europe in a very strict way, with the letter of law making it illegal to smoke in any closed indoor spaces, in Cyprus the way the law is currently phrased seems to allow some useful leeway on the matter.
Article 14 of the legislation states: “As per the implications of the provisions of article 10 [namely that smoking is not permitted by any person in areas where smoking is forbidden, with open internal or external spaces specifically excluded] the provisions of the current article do not prevent the employer from allowing smoking in closed areas with adequate ventilation systems and in which are found exclusively employees who are smokers and moreover request that smoking is permitted in that area.”
This would mean that, provided an application is made in writing by the employees to their employer, the new legislation due to come into effect makes specific provision for dedicated smoking areas in the workplace. These areas can either be indoor spaces with appropriate ventilation systems installed or open spaces either enclosed within the building (such as internal garden areas) or simply outdoors.
According to the newspaper ‘Politis’ which checked the legislation with MP’s, from the moment when a definition for ‘employer’ is not specified more narrowly in the legislation then the state is also to be considered an employer. Thus, teachers as well as other municipal employees could secure a smoking room if they request it in writing.
Glafkos Hadjipetrou, the general secretary of PASYDY, the civil servants’ union, said that as yet there was no movement on the part of civil servants to set aside any new areas for smoking. He supposed that, as now, when the new legislation came into effect the smoking areas in municipal buildings would remain.
