Smoking policies in manufacturing and assembly workplaces, Wisconsin, 1999

Although Wisconsin's clean indoor air law prohibits or restricts smoking in certain areas, it specifically exempts manufacturing and assembly workplaces from its provisions. We conducted a mail survey of 1500 randomly selected employers to determine the nature and extent of smoking policies in Wisconsin's blue-collar workforce. Of the 1042 (70%) respondents, 49% prohibit all smoking; 26% allow smoking only in designated areas; 18% allow smoking in all areas except designated non-smoking areas; and 7% allow smoking anywhere. Larger employers were more likely to have smoking policies. Of the 61% of respondents who indicated having a formal smoking policy, the reasons for having the policy were safety (40%), health (38%), or employee request (12%). For those employers without a smoking policy, the main reasons were that few employees smoke (37%), the decision is left to the employee's discretion (32%), or employees may object to having a policy (10%). About half of the employees in manufacturing and assembly workplaces continue to be exposed to environmental tobacco smoke.