IF the Australian Hotels Association really cared about its members and their employees it would do something really useful and support a complete smoking ban in Victoria's pubs, clubs, restaurants and gaming rooms.

Second-hand smoke kills. Yes, kills.

And as much as the AHA would like to pretend that hospitality workers are being adequately protected in their smoke-ridden workplaces, nothing could be further from the truth.

Hot off the press is a survey of 1078 Victorian members of the Australian Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union, which has just been published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health.

Conducted by the Centre for Behavioural Research in Cancer at the Victorian Cancer Council, the survey found 57 per cent of hospitality workers were exposed to second-hand smoke during a typical day's work, compared with 8 per cent of other workers.

And a vast majority of those surveyed expressed concern about being exposed to second-hand smoke, with those working in the hospitality industry the most concerned.

As one respondent said: ``It is so exasperating constantly being around smoking.

``A lot of workers are very angry; the workers see it as managers not caring (they sit in their smoke-free offices). The managers are more concerned about losing profit than the health of their workers.''

One of the authors of the survey, Melanie Wakefield, told me yesterday:

``The data shows there is widespread concern. Hospitality workers are incredibly disadvantaged and their health is at serious risk as a consequence.''

So what is the AHA doing to protect these workers from the risk of disease or death?

The short answer is not much. Given the undeniable fact that any workplace that allows smoking is unsafe, the AHA's strategy of obstructing and delaying legislative reform -- and placing profits ahead of people -- is at best short-sighted and at worst negligent.

The irony is that if the AHA extracted its head from the sand, it might find that smoke-free workplaces were good for employees and business.

That has certainly been the experience in New York City where smoking was recently banned in all indoor areas, including bars and restaurants.

The evidence for the ban was overwhelming. A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association  found that waitresses had higher rates of lung and heart disease than any other traditionally female occupational group.

It found that one shift in a smoky bar was equivalent to smoking 16 cigarettes a day. And according to the U.C. Berkeley School of Public Health, two hours in a smoky bar is the same as smoking four cigarettes.

To date, five states in the US have enacted smoke-free workplace legislation.

What's particularly interesting is that business in New York bars and restaurants has actually improved. According to New York City's assistant commissioner for tobacco control, Nancy Miller, ``data . . . showed employment in New York City restaurants and bars increased by 1500 seasonally adjusted jobs, amounting to an absolute gain of nearly 10,000 jobs since the implementation of the (legislation) of 2002''.

The AHA's stance on such an important public health issue is bad enough. But what's even worse is the Victorian Government's unwillingness -- as is the case Australia-wide -- to implement a complete ban on smoking in all enclosed work and public places.

The Victorian laws that restrict but do not ban smoking in licensed premises do not protect workers. Health Minister Bronwyn Pike has been making the right noises for further reform. But noise is not enough.

Our legislators need to wake up to the reality that no employee, regardless of their industry, should continue to be subjected to such a serious public health risk.

shenderson@kudosmg.com