PacifiCare Won’t Ban Smoking, for Now

Should a health-care company leave ashtrays outside its building?

That was a question managers at PacifiCare Health Systems were wrestling with recently. The Cypress-based health maintenance organization has long prohibited smoking in its offices, but workers have increasingly argued that it’s hypocritical for a company that pushes good health to allow smoking on its campus.

So PacifiCare, considering whether to eliminate smoking on all of its grounds, surveyed its 2,500 employees. The result: “The response from some workers was that it was not fair, so we decided not to do that,” said Wanda Lee, PacifiCare’s senior vice president. Lee added that management will study the matter again in the next few months.

Matt Bartosiak, a senior consultant at the Employers Group in Los Angeles, says some companies in the Southland have removed outdoor ashtrays to discourage workers from taking frequent or long breaks.

But that hasn’t been a problem at PacifiCare. Lee says workers who feel they need to smoke more often than their normal breaks allow are told to clock out. Otherwise, she says, “it wouldn’t be equitable to other workers.”

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Don Lee covers workplace issues for The Times. He can be reached at (714) 966-7407 and at don.lee@latimes.com.