What can employees do if exposed to secondhand smoke?

Workers' Compensation
File a claim under workers’ compensation every time you get a cold, allergy attack, asthma attack or any respiratory problems which may be related to SHS. These are work-related illnesses, since SHS is a toxin in the work environment.
Here’s how: [U.S. Dept of Labor] (switch to Dept of Labor website)

Document that your Employer is Aware of Damage from SHS
Inform your employer about the dangers of SHS. Document that he has been informed. A certified letter (that he has to sign for) will work. Keep this documentation for later when you or any of your fellow workers will need to sue for damages following a heart attack or lung cancer. Breast cancer has now been shown to be related to secondhand smoke exposure.

Report your Employer to OSHA
Even if you have not yet been damaged by SHS, you can report your employer to OSHA as violating the general duty clause of OSHA law, which requires your employer to provide a safe workplace.
Here’s how: [File a complaint] (switch to OSHA website)

If You are Harmed, You can Sue!
If you acquire a serious illness such as lung cancer or heart disease, and you are exposed to SHS at work, your employer is liable for damages.
Get a lawyer!

Workers Can Also Utilize NIOSH as a Resource

NIOSH representatives and NIOSH Health Hazard Evaluations (HHE) are wonderful resources to further promote safe and healthy, 100% smokefree work environments.  NIOSH is charged with a public health mandate, and the presence of secondhand smoke in the workplace is an issue of interest to the government agency. To reinforce and encourage this interest and translate it into a NIOSH priority, resulting in more field tests, workers exposed to SHS are encouraged  to collaborate with NIOSH on filing a complaint. Not only will this build personal and group strength among these workers who feel disempowered by their secondhand smoke exposure, but it will also send a strong message to management and provide multiple opportunities to generate media around the issue. Additionally, here is the link to NIOSH town hall meetings, http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/nora/townhall/details.html. Providing testimony is also a wonderful first-hand means of relating the need for more field tests on secondhand smoke.

Filing an HHE Request
Follow this link to the Health Hazard Evaluation (HHE) section of NIOSH at www.cdc.gov/niosh/hhe. HHE is a study of a workplace. It is done to learn whether workers are exposed to hazardous materials or harmful conditions. An HHE can be requested by three or more employees, a member of a labor union, or any management official. Request an HHE at http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/hhe/Request.html.

The HHE process
After first contacts are made, the NIOSH representative will look into the organization's archives to see if field studies have been conducted in the past and, if so, how many. Based on the conciseness and thoroughness of the archival materials, the NIOSH representative will do one of two things: (1) if there is an abundance of solid information, studies, and previous field reports, a recommendation based on preexisting data will be issued; or (2) if there are not a lot of solid information and field reports on file, a letter will be sent to the establishment's managerial/HR department, informing them that an HHE field study will be conducted and that their assistance is needed in the process.

Pending Option (2), the NIOSH representative will work with the establishment to organize times for a site visit, for obtaining written consent from HHE participants, and to coordinate when the actual testing will be conducted. Management is to notify staff that the testing will be taking place. NIOSH goes in two to three times before the tests and then again to gather the data (roughly three days), leaves, and begins the number crunching process. The final report goes through a number of peer review cycles before it is finalized. Per the study's results, a recommendation is issued to the establishment's management on how to responsibly tend to the workplace health hazard. This recommendation does not have any jurisdictional power, however, it is a recommendation issued by the federal government.

This entire process (from filing a request to issuing the final recommendation) takes roughly six months. This time table flexes depending on the number of complaints filed, whether or not a request warrants an instant recommendation letter or a field test, and natural disasters.