Smoking breaks

AN organisation of family-owned businesses in Germany has angered labour groups with a call to improve productivity and raise staff health by banning smoking breaks in the workplace. “They should stop for calisthenics, not for a smoke,” said Mario Ohoven, president of the BVMW Federation of MidSized Businesses.

He told a newspaper, Bild, he wanted to “get rid of the fug during work,” adding, “Smoking breaks cost employers money.” A smoker who takes three smoking breaks daily, each five minutes long, costs his employer on average well over 2,000 euros ($2,600) annually in lost work, the BVMW maintains.

“And a lot of them smoke more than three cigarettes a day,” said Ohoven, who says lunch breaks offer sufficient time out for smokers. Germany’s Cancer Science Council estimated in 2009 that nationally, smoking breaks cost Germany 28 billion euros annually in lost productivity.

Smoking in offices and factories used to be common, but over the past decade, most employers have gradually banned it. But they allow smokers to go outside every hour or so to smoke in the open air. Some even provide smoking rooms.

The most recent official statistics, from 2009, show 74 per cent of adult Germans are non-smokers. Smoking is legally banned in shops, public transport and most restaurants.

Another group of family-owned companies agrees with the BVMW. Ursula Frerichs of the Federation of Mid-sized Business Entrepreneurs told Bild that smoking breaks discriminate against non-smokers who keep working.

“Non-smokers are losing out,” she said, charging that workshops were often idled when the smokers all left at the same time to smoke together. The business groups say many employers in Scandinavian nations have successfully implemented a “smoke-free work time” policy.

Annelie Buntenbach of a national trade union federation, the DGB, denied the economy was hurt by Germany’s smoking minority. “The idea that it disturbs work or idles factories is ridiculous,” she said, adding that working in life in Germany had become so stressful that people needed more breaks.

Kerstin Jerchel, a lawyer at one trade union, Verdi, said outdoor smoking breaks were a good solution to friction between smokers and non-smokers.