Number of Companies Limiting Smoking Rises 50%, Study Finds

The number of companies limiting smoking in the workplace has increased by 50% in the last year, a private research firm reported in a survey of 623 personnel executives released Tuesday.

Fifty-four percent of the companies surveyed now have some form of smoking policy, according to the study, made by the Bureau of National Affairs Inc., and an additional 25% are considering such a step. The survey said that 36% of companies limited smoking in 1986.

“Smoking in the workplace is under siege,” the report said. “Employers of every size and description are moving to limit when and where employees smoke.”

Worker Complaints Cited

Firms most commonly limit smoking because of concerns about employee health and comfort, the report said, but more than half cited worker complaints. More than a third pointed to state and local laws.

A spokesman for the American Lung Assn. found the results “encouraging” and said that the 1986 surgeon general’s report on the health hazards of environmental smoke prodded companies to act this year.

“Nonsmoking has become the social norm in the United States,” said Hildy Dillon, a program associate for the group. “Smokers themselves are concerned about the health hazards of their tobacco smoke for families, friends and co-workers.”

A Gallup Organization poll released last week by the American Lung Assn. said that 87% of Americans believe workplace smoking should be restricted or banned altogether, Dillon said.

The employer survey found that about three-quarters of the companies that have taken action on smoking have banned it in hallways, restrooms and conference rooms, and half have banned smoking in open work areas. Nearly two-thirds of the companies with policies designate specific smoking areas, most commonly cafeterias.

Companies with complete bans on smoking tend to polarize workers, with about half of the smokers saying that they are unhappy and more than 80% of the nonsmokers saying they are happy, the survey said.

The Tobacco Institute, an industry advocacy group, said that it opposes a total ban on smoking in the workplace and favors a “common sense” policy based on the desires of a company’s workers.

“Management is best served by trying to make most people happy and not taking a Draconian approach and imposing very strict rules that people don’t like,” institute spokesman Brennan Moran said. “Most of the company policies I have seen do try to strike a reasonable balance.”

Various estimates of the annual cost of smoking to companies in health care and productivity loss range from $400 to $4,600 a worker, according to the survey, which found “little noticeable effect” on costs for companies that limit smoking.

Only 7% of the firms reported any notable effect on costs, the survey said.

Curbs Higher in West

Smoking limits are most common on the West Coast, where three-quarters of the companies have tobacco policies; fewer than half of Southern firms have taken any such steps.

Fourteen states have enacted laws or regulations covering smoking in the private sector, and 31 states and the District of Columbia have regulations affecting public areas or buildings, said Jeff Day, the survey’s chief reporter.

“The real action now is on the local, not the state, level,” Day said.

He said that more than 100 California municipalities, including Los Angeles, regulate smoking in some way.