At EB: Snuffing Out All Tobacco

Policy Could Affect Thousands At Plant!

By ERIC GERSHON, Courant Staff Writer -

August 8, 2006 - Smokers at Electric Boat might want to take a nice, long drag.

Come next July, the submarine maker plans to prohibit the use of all tobacco products on company property in Groton - not just cigarettes, company officials told employees Monday, but snuff and chewing tobacco, too.

Intended to improve the health of workers and minimize health-related expenses, the policy could affect thousands of the 7,900 workers at the Groton shipyard, officials acknowledged.

Corporations across the country are showing increasing interest in controlling workplace tobacco use because of fast-rising health care costs, but Electric Boat has laid out a more restrictive policy even than Aetna, a health insurer. Aetna lets workers smoke in a shady area just behind its red-brick headquarters in Hartford.

EB officials said they will help their employees quit.

"Clearly, smoking is going to be a tough habit to break," said Alvin J. Ayers, EB's director of health, wellness and disability benefits.

The company plans to offer free smoking cessation classes, for example, as well as gum and patches designed to control the urge for nicotine. EB's medical team also will start questioning workers about their tobacco use during physicals at the shipyard health center.

The simple act of talking about their nicotine use could encourage workers to quit, said Dr. Robert P. Hurley, EB's medical director.

The first eight-week smoking cessation course is scheduled to begin in September, he said.

Labor union leaders could not be reached for comment Monday afternoon, after most workers had been informed of the new tobacco-free workplace policy. Company officials said they expected some "detractors," and one union official said earlier in the day that the plan appeared to change working conditions governed by labor agreements.

"At first blush, it's something that could become a problem," said John Worobey Jr., president of Marine Draftmen's Association Local 571, which represents about 1,600 design, technical and administrative workers at Electric Boat. Worobey, who said he smokes "a few" Marlboros a day, had not received official notification of the new Tobacco Free Workplace Policy and said he would reserve further comment.

Robert H. Nardone, vice president for human resources, said the new policy is not subject to collective bargaining, but that the company wants to work with the unions to make the transformation as palatable as possible.

"We have to work together to get to July 1, 2007," he said.

EB has not surveyed employees to learn exactly how many smoke or use tobacco products. But Hurley said state health officials estimate that 26 percent to 28 percent of the general population smokes cigarettes. That could mean more than 2,000 of the 7,900 workers at the Groton shipyard and offices have 11 months to kick the habit.

Doing so might prove more painful for some than others - namely those whose duties keep them on company property all day, company officials acknowledged. Anyone who leaves the property can smoke at will.

"We don't own the street," one company official said.

Like many companies, including Aetna, Electric Boat already forbids smoking inside its buildings. EB employees may smoke outdoors as long as they are not within 25 feet of any structure, officials said. The company, which does not now restrict the use of smokeless tobacco, prefers that workers smoke at one of eight or nine, 6-by-9 plexiglass huts designated for the purpose, they said.

EB officials on Monday said they had not calculated the potential health care savings for either the company or its workers.

"We have to provide the safest and healthiest environment we can," Nardone said.

He said enforcement measures or penalties have not been decided yet.

"Quite frankly, I think we'll have to sit down with the presidents of the unions and talk about this a little bit," he said.

But companies have shown a willingness to fire violators. The Society for Human Resource Management, a national group, says that 26 percent of 523 companies in a January 2006 survey reported having written policies that state that smoking in undesignated areas could result in termination.

The tobacco ban takes effect at EB's Quonset Point, R.I., facility on March 1, 2007, four months in advance of the Groton shipyard.

Contact Eric Gershon at egershon@courant.com.

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