News
City to allow employees to use tobacco only on breaks
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
Beatrice Daily Sun
The Beatrice City Council approved a new tobacco policy during its regular meeting, which was held Tuesday rather than Monday due to the Labor Day holiday.
The new policy will not allow city employees to use tobacco at any time on the clock, with the exception of two paid 15-minutes breaks. Workers are not paid for their lunch break.
The policy will be enforced regardless of the employees’ location.
Beatrice previously prohibited smoking in city buildings or vehicles, but didn’t regulate chewing tobacco.
The proposal was initially discussed during the Council’s June work session and was proposed by councilman Ted Fairbanks, who cited the fact that the city is self insured as one reason to move forward with a tobacco ban.
“First of all the time the employees take to do their smoke break, they're not working,” Fairbanks said Tuesday. “You eliminate that, there would be more production from employees.
“The second thing is we're self employed. I think what we need to do is separate ourselves from our personal opinions and relationships and really look at this and how it affects the employees themselves and the city.”
The initial policy that was presented Monday also prohibited tobacco use during employees' two 15-minute breaks, though Councilman Jason Moore moved to amend the policy to exclude the 30 minutes each workday.
Councilman Dwight Parde expressed support for allowing tobacco use while on 15-minute breaks.
“I guess I don’t know for sure where the issues comes up at,” Parde said. “I talked to a couple supervisors today and several employees… it’s not an issue I think they should have some break if they want to.”
The vote to amend the ordinance passed 5-3 with councilmen Erich Tiemann, David "Pede" Catlin and Fairbanks voting in opposition.
One issue raised was how department heads would enforce the policy and what type of penalty workers in violation would face. City administrator Tobias Tempelmeyer said that issue will be discussed at a department head meeting to ensure all are enforcing the policy in a similar way.
It was also pointed out that it can be difficult for department heads to tell when employees are using mouth tobacco, though it was included in the policy.
The amended policy passed 6-2 with Tiemann and Catlin voting in opposition.
