Anne Landman's Collection
A Program to Deal with Voluntary Smoking Restrictions in the Workplace
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A Program to Deal With Voluntary
Smoking Restrictions in~ the Workplace
The Tobacco Institute
March 1983
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ..................................................i
INTRODU'CT'ION .......................................................1
AUDIENCES ..........................................................4
OBJECTIVES .........................................................6
Objective I ..................................................7
Strategy I and Tactics ....................................8
Strategy II and Tactics ..................................12
Objective II...... ..... ......... ..... ......... .............. 18
Strategy I and Tactics .................. :................19
Strategy II and Tactics ..................................21
Strategy III and Tactics .................................22
Strateg IV ahd Tactics ..................................24
ORGANIZATION ......................................................25
BUDGET....... .......... ...........................................33
PROPOSED SCHEDULE'AND RESPONSIBILITIES ............................37
APPENDICES
APPENDIX A: Articles by Dr. William Weis and Dr. Lewis Solmon
APPENDIX B: Opinion Research Proposal from Response Analysis
Corporation
APPENDIX C: Summary of Litigation
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
I. An increasing number of corporations, institutions, and public
agencies are imposing unnecessary workplace smoking
restrictions.
o At their most extreme, these restrictions preclude hiring
smokers. More typically, they involve segregation and
restrictive rules.
o William L. Weis, a Seattle University accounting professor,
is at the forefront, with claims that smoking employees cost
more than nonsmoking employees.
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restrictions.
II. Voluntary restrictions by organizations pose significantly
different challenges than legislatively and judicially imposed
o There are 50 state legislatures and a few hundred~cities
where we might confront the issue, while there are hundreds
of thousands of workplaces where we can be effective.
o We are experienced with the legislative process but
relatively inexperienced in the kind of corporate relations
activities required for this issue. Currently, we do not CW
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have access to or credibility with workplace policy makers.Q'
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III. The recommended program~suggests two organizational approaches
to deal with these challenges.
o The plan~desribes industry/consultant task forces directly
involved with program implementation.
o The plan calls for a staff member to manage all facets of the
issue.
IV. The program objectives, strategies, and' tactics are aimed at two
broad audiences:
o Workplace policy makers
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Financial, personnel, legal, union, trade association, and
other professionals who recommend and/or set workplace rules.
o The working public
A less sophisticated audience whose primary interest in the
issue is the alleged dangers and annoyance of ambient smoke.
They are largely in favor of separate sections but opposed to
outright bans.
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V. The first broad audience is workplace policy makers.
Objective:
Discourage businesses, institutions, and public agencies from
unfairly discriminating against employees who smoke.
Strategies
We will achieve this objective by:
1. Respond directly to Weis and others with similar views.
2. Convincing those responsible for setting workplace policies
that unnecessary smoking restrictions deter productivity by:
. distracting management and legal resources and
. disrupting the workforce.
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Tactics W
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Tobacco industry task forces and consultants will devise and ~O
implement tactics ranging potentially from advertising to
briefings and presentations before key workplace policy makers.
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VI. The second broad audience is the working public.
Objective:
Increase public understanding that many workplace smoking
restrictions are unnecessary and unfair.
Strategies
To achieve this objective, we will demonstrate that:
1. Anti-smokers seek to ban smoking, not simply restrict it.
2. Smokers are courteous.
3. There is no persuasive evidence that cigarette smoke in the
air causes disease in healthy non-smokers.
4. Unfair restrictions such as those on smoking ultimately
infringe on the rights of all persons.
Tactics
Tobacco industry task forces and consultants will rely
principally on mass media approaches such as spokesman W
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appearances on radio and television, carton stuffers, and cjl
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possibly advertising. ~
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INTbtODUCT I ON
Over the last decade, anti-smokers proved themselves largely incapable
of obtaining legislation to restrict smoking in public places. Of the
1,500 bills introduced at the state level, more than 93 percent were
defeated -- some of them easily. Of the seven initiative referenda
fought, anti-smokers lost all seven.
It is highly unlikely that anti-smokers will abandon the legislative
process. But it is clear that anti-smokers are now seeking public
smoking restrictions in non-legislative ways.
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More typically, they involve segregation of smokers and nonsmokers and
rules restricting smoking in the workplace.
The single most effective and potentially dangerous avenue they have
taken involves voluntary restrictions on smoking in the workplace.
their most extreme, these restrictions can affect hiring practices.
As an issue "smoking in the workplace" languished until the
publication of a series of articles by Dr. William L. Weis,* an
accounting professor at Seattle University. Dr. Weis claimed that
smoking employees cost their employers more than nonsmoking
employees. The amount of those costs has differed in various Weis
articles.
* See Appendix A for Weis' article "Can you afford to hire
smokers," Personnel Administrator, May 1981.
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With Dr. Weis at the forefront, anti-smokers have used their access to
corporate and institutional board rooms to introduce the concept of
smoking as an avoidable business expense. An increasingly large
number of businesses, many prominent, have at least lent their names
to a list of corporations dealing with the alleged problem of smoking
in the workplace.
There are 50 state legislatures posing the potential of public smoking
bills, compared to hundreds of thousands of businesses and
institutions capable of imposing restrictions voluntarily.
These restrictions appear to fall in four categories:
1. Necessary and reasonable
Smoking restrictions such~as those for hospital rooms with oxygen
in use, gasoline station pumps, and certaimmanufacturing
situations are considered necessary and reasonable by most
people. So long as these restrictions are reasonable, we see no
reason to oppose them.
2. Marketing
Some companies, notably in the insurance industry, apparently
have found marketing opportunities in smoking restrictions.
Their continuation indicates their success. If the market
responds to these techniques, there is some question what we
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might do to oppose them. Industry-wide boycotts may be illegal
and individual boycotts may be ineffectual.
3. Lack of information~
An increasing number of businesses, institutions and agencies are
bowing to anti-smoker pressure by creating separate
smoker/non-smoker sections, limiting the hours when persons may
smoke and'even refusing employment to smokers.
In some cases, we can assume these actions are being taken by
policy makers who are themselves anti-smokers. 'In other
instances, we believe we are dealing with uninformed policy
makers.
This document outlines a program to communicate with policy makers who
require a more thorough understanding of smoking restrictions, and
with the public which must then live within such restrictions.
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Audiences
This program directs its objectives and strategies towards two broad
audiences:
1. Business, institution, public agency, and labor union workplace
policy makers.
This first audience is composed of those who make and enforce
policies in personnel administration, labor relations, finance,
benefits administration, legal affairs and general management.
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These individuals represent large and small businesses, labor
unions, public agencies, and non-profit institutions. Within
these categories are organizations with reasonable limits on
smoking, unreasonable limits, and those who have not considered
the matter.
This audience is more sophisticated than "the general public," or
"adult Americans," to whom~our second objective is aimed. It is
more able to compare our arguments and tactics with those of the
anti-smokers than is our second audience.
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