Companies are stamping out smoking to cut their medical costs and protect the health of employees
Jump to full article: Gaithersburg (MD) Gazette, 2006-09-15
Author: Kevin J. Shay Staff Writer
Intro: Pretty soon, smokers may not be allowed to light up even on the loading dock during their workday.
In an effort to trim health care costs and shield employees and customers from the effects of secondhand smoke, companies are cracking down harder on tobacco.
Two of Maryland's biggest employers -- Bethesda defense and aerospace giant Lockheed Martin Corp. and Greater Baltimore Medical Center -- are going beyond a ban on indoor smoking. Earlier this year, the Baltimore hospital banned smoking by employees anywhere on company property, including parking lots. Lockheed, which has about 135,000 employees, including about 2,700 in Montgomery County, plans a similar ban beginning Jan. 1.
Bethesda hotelier Marriott International now stipulates that guests cannot smoke in any of its roughly 400,000 rooms in the United States and Canada. . . .
Nationwide, some companies such as Scotts Miracle-Gro Co. of Marysville, Ohio, which has offices in Maryland, have gone even further, pledging not to hire smokers. Employee benefits company Weyco of Okemos, Mich., actually fired existing employees who smoke, according to published reports. But Weyco officials said in a statement that those employees ''opted out of the [company's tobacco-free] program and decided to seek employment elsewhere."
The tougher measures are fueled by reports such as one from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which says that tobacco users cost a company an average of $3,391 annually in lost productivity and medical costs. Cigarette smoking is the leading preventable cause of death in the United States, the agency adds.
The U.S. surgeon general also recently released a report calling for stronger corporate smoking bans . . .
''Smoking should never be used as a litmus test for something as vital to fundamental rights as being considered for a job," McFadden said.
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