Working in the engine room of a ship can be hazardous to health as it is. I work with 2 other engineers, the chief and the 2nd engineer. Both smokers

In the mornings in the control room. (A room
No bigger than a car) during the morning toolbox talks, at breaks and any period of discussion I usually have to sit there in a cloud of smoke breathing all that shit in

I would imagine that offshore vessels have to abide by the rules as onshore workplaces but there is little to none I the means of enforcing it

The MCA (maritime and coastguard agency) state that

"The logical principle must surely be that smoking is not permitted anywhere on any ship unless the area has been designated by the master as an area in which smoking is permitted, in which case it will be clearly identified as such in signage. The message to all employees and passengers is then a simple one – if you cannot see a sign permitting smoking then it will be against the law for anyone to do so."

The control room does not have any signage. I have spoken to other people about this not on my vessel and they have said (coming from a smoker)

"Well as a smoker I usually will not smoke around non-smokers unless they come sit and yarn whilst I'm smoking then I see it as their choice to be around it, and I definitely would not smoke in control room if a non-smoking engineer onboard, I assumed all engineers were the same, to be honest Bryan u are well with in ur rite to ban smoking in control room if u dnt smoke, company would back u all the way.
Even tho I smoke I can't stand people smoking whilst I eat, our night watchman just sits in galley all night smoking so when I wanna prepare food and tell him to fuck off for a bit or stop smoking he acts funny because I smoke so it shouldn't matter but to me it does..."

So others do agree with me. However, mentioning this to the other engineers they will most likely laugh in my face and tell me to fuck off and laugh in my face. If I also tell the office then it would be obvious it came from me as I'm the only non smoker....

My other course of action is to mention it to the union rep who can give the office a generic complaint from a crewmember in the fleet (20 ships in total) and see if they act on it

What are your thoughts on this? Am I right to complain or keep my mouth shut?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk