Case Study: Building a Worker-Led Movement to Pass Public Health Legislation

cease rally april 2022

Key Outcomes

  • The Rhode Island legislature passed legislation to restrict smoking in their state’s casinos with bipartisan support in June 2025.
  • The New Jersey legislature is expected to pass bipartisan legislation addressing the issue in Atlantic City casinos, with the bill gaining bipartisan support from a majority of legislators in the State Assembly and Senate. 
  • The debate over indoor smoking in casinos has become a prominent issue in half a dozen states, including Nevada, as well as in the casino gaming industry, with Echo Communications Advisors driving thousands of news articles in national, state, local and trade media about the issue over the last five years.

The Client

Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights (ANR) is a leading public health nonprofit focused on strengthening and increasing protections from secondhand smoke. Since 2020, Echo Communications Advisors has worked with ANR and helped grow Casino Workers Against Smoking Effects (CEASE) into an influential grassroots, worker-led movement that started in New Jersey and has expanded across the country.

The Challenge

While most states have eliminated indoor smoking from most public places, many of society’s most vulnerable are still exposed in their workplaces. In states like New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Nevada, among others, tens of thousands of casino workers are forced to breathe toxic secondhand smoke every day.

In 2021, New Jersey lifted its temporary, Covid-era ban on indoor smoking in casinos. Casino employees were devastated to have their workplaces once again filled with smoke, and they decided to take action. What began as a small rally of 100 employees on the Atlantic City boardwalk has grown to a group of more than 3,000 members — and our team has, from the start, advised them on strategy and consistently told their story, including in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and on CNBC.

The Solution

Echo has worked hand-in-hand with CEASE since the group’s formation, helping guide not just press strategy but their organizing efforts more broadly. With persistent press outreach (including frequent rapid response), innovative tactics, engagement with legislators, politicians and elected officials, and strategic paid media placements, we have called attention to the human cost of secondhand smoke and put significant pressure on lawmakers to act. 

Getting smoking out of New Jersey casinos has risen to become a key issue in the state. A strong majority of voters in South Jersey supports smokefree casinos, according to a recent poll commissioned as part of our work, and candidates for governor and the General Assembly have felt pressured to take a stand. Meanwhile in Rhode Island, thanks to the tireless efforts of CEASE, ANR, and Echo, the governor signed a bill in June 2025 that limited smoking in the state’s casinos.

  • Earned Media: Echo has worked hand-in-hand with ANR and CEASE to make casino smoking a nationally recognized workers’ rights and public health issue. Thanks to Echo, CEASE and ANR have garnered thousands of clips over the past five years in high-impact national, local and trade outlets, including features in the New York Times, CNBC, and Huff Post. Gaming trade media routinely picks up CEASE statements and looks to ANR for commentary on the industry’s smoking policies. The New Jersey press corps regularly covers CEASE, where smoking in casinos has become a statewide debate. In addition to news coverage, Echo has developed and helped place op-eds and letters-to-the-editor that bring local voices to the forefront and reflect the growing momentum for smokefree policies. We also successfully pitched a video with More Perfect Union, which drew legislators’ attention and succinctly captured the problem facing workers
  • Message Development: We’ve developed effective messaging that has broadened support among elected officials across the political and ideological spectrum. Rather than framing the issue as a “smoking ban,” we focus on “closing the loophole” in state law that still allows indoor smoking. This language emphasizes the need to fix an outdated exception, which resonates more with libertarian-leaning officials and voters who might otherwise oppose a government-imposed ban. Our consistent use of this framing has influenced media coverage, with reporters regularly adopting the “loophole” narrative—further reinforcing support.
  • Reporter Engagement: Our work focuses on finding moments for creative rapid response and commentary, and making sure that workers’ voices are heard and break through in newscycle after newscycle. We have built strong relationships with reporters in New Jersey and at key trade publications thanks to consistent, timely, and relevant outreach. By proactively identifying hooks such as court rulings, legislative hearings, shareholder proxy votes, and broader cultural conversations about workers’ rights and public health, we’ve kept the issue front and center for several years.
  • Events: Echo has led and supported impactful media moments, including rallies, press conferences, panels at gaming industry events, and virtual press calls, across states like Rhode Island, New Jersey, Nevada, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. These events elevate worker voices and generate regional and trade coverage, keeping pressure on lawmakers and the industry. We organized well-covered press conferences at the casino industry’s largest annual trade show in Las Vegas and eventually convinced the show’s organizers to include the topic, and our client, in a panel discussion on an issue they typically shy away from discussing.
  • Media Training: Echo has provided ongoing media training for CEASE members and ANR, preparing workers and staff with the resources to ensure they stay on message, avoid common pitfalls, share personal stories with impact, and handle interviews and press interaction seamlessly, helping elevate the workers who are the most powerful messengers in this fight.
  • Paid Media: Echo developed and executed paid media strategies to amplify CEASE’s message, highlighting the overwhelming public support for smokefree casinos and elevating the human stories behind the movement. One campaign, called “Kids of CEASE,” featured ads targeting key legislators that spotlighted the families of casino workers and their stories.
  • Social Media: Echo executes a consistent and coordinated social media strategy to uplift worker stories, highlight key public health implications of smokefree casinos, and keep pressure on key decision-makers. 

Sample Media Coverage: