Hi,

Small problem, with regard to smoking. The factory staff have a smoking canteen and a non smoking canteen, and can only smoke during lunch and the 2 breaks. Staff however can smoke at any time it seems in the smoking canteen or outside. Recently the Operations Manager has told the factory they can not smoke outside at all, nor in the toilets but the staff were not told this. (I was not consulted about any of this and have only found out after the complaints have come in!)

I now have complaints about
1) the fact Staff can smoke outside on the company premises and factory can’t
Which is a fair comment and one which I’ll address with the managers to roll out the message
2) non smokers are complaining that they don’t have all these informal breaks that smokers have and why not?

I have looked into it and find there is no definitive answer as to what we have to provide/tolerate, custom and practice has allowed this to go on. I know that some of the come back will be “but we put extra time in elsewhere and we need a cigarette.”

Any one come across this before and have an answer to what seems the unanswerable. All help gratefully received.

Thanks Liz

Liz Pugh