From march 26, smokers in the Tasmania’s Public Service will be required to clock in and out when they leave the office for a smoke. Under an agreement worked out with the union workers will be required to make up for every minute spent outside smoking. The idea has been picked up by anti-smoking campaigners, who applaud it.
But the idea is based on a fallacy that there is a precise amount of time-off that smokers get which non-smokers do not. No human is capable of working undistracted by non-work things for exactly eight hours a day. All employees day-dream, play cards on the computer, send personal e-mails, make personal calls on the phone and so on. Provided this time is within reason, employers would be silly to prohibit those activities. It would drive employees to become counter-productive zombies.
When smokers take their smoko, they invariably do it with colleagues and invariably discuss work matters. Indeed, the informality of the smoko can help build bridges between different sections and different levels in the workforce. Ideas can be generated in the informal meetings. When smokers return to their offices, they invariably have to “”catch up”.
To the extent that every worker needs time aside from full-on concentration on work, they will take varying amounts of time irrespective of whether they are smokers or not. Some non-smokers will take more time off than smokers.
It may well be that smokers have poorer health overall, but it is a separate issue from the question of fairness between smokers and non-smokers in the workforce.
If smokers are forced to clock out and clock in, they will start pointing the finger at non-smokers who spend any time whatever away from the grindstone. Are toilet breaks to be monitored?
The sheer logistics of timing the smoking breaks will make the exercise counter-productive.
We need tolerance and flexibility in the workplace.
That said, governments and employees should continue anti-smoking campaigns. Advertising bans, give-up campaigns, education, high taxes and the like are the proper armoury to convince people to give up or not take up smoking. Petty persecution in the workplace only builds resentment. It is counter-productive because it brands people as “”smokers” and could result in smoking workers sticking their fingers up at their petty oppressors.
The Federal and ACT Public Service will not need to watch the Tasmanian experience for very long to see how unworkable it is.