Today I saw the cover of this week's issue of Swerve (a local magazine distributed with the Calgary Herald, which my dad reads), and the cover article is about smoke breaks. This reminded me of [2fries]'s comment (on "…and smoking", I think) about smoke breaks being an incentive to start smoking (because if you smoke you get to take more break).
I want to propose an incentive the other way. The government should either make a law to mandate this, or provide some kind of tax incentive for companies to implement it.
Here it is: Nonsmokers get at least as much extra break as smokers do.
Here's how it would work: Each employer where breaks are timed and who employs both one smoker and one nonsmoker tracks the smoker's/s' smoke breaks. Then they give the nonsmoker employee(s) the same amount of extra break (above whatever amount they'd normally get). Employers who don't time breaks simply tell their nonsmoking employees that they may take as much break as the smoking ones do, and do not punish or reprimand nonsmoking employees for taking excessive break as long as it's not above the amount the smokers take.
To make it an incentive to quit smoking, or not start, the nonsmoking employee's/s' break can be calculated as, say, 1.5× the smoker's/s' break.
If the nonsmoking employee(s) take excessive break that is still less than the smoking employee's/s' break, then the smoking employee(s) get blamed for allowing them to. This is another incentive to quit/not start.
Obviously employers wouldn't like this, because their employees would get more break and (in their view) would consequently be less productive. That's why it needs to be mandated or tax-incentivized. It could be difficult to enforce on the employers, but companies have their finances audited all the time, and this wouldn't be too different from that. It could also be difficult to enforce on employees (because smoking employees could claim to be nonsmokers to get longer breaks, while continuing to smoke), but this could be solved by fining employers who allow nonsmoke break fraud.
Companies could also advertise that they do this, both to customers (as social good advertising) and to job applicants (though that would only attract the nonsmoking ones or ones who want to quit, obviously).
N/A-- notexactly, Jun 03 2017 Brain scans https://www.google....erm+drug+users+puffAre employees with fewer brains because of cigs better employees ? [popbottle, Jun 03 2017, last modified Jun 04 2017] Have a smoker's area requiring swipe-card access.
Smokers have to swipe in and out. They lose pay for any time spent smoking at time-and-a-half rates.
Every payday they see just how much smoking is taking off the bottom line.-- 8th of 7, Jun 03 2017 What sort of employment is this where // if you smoke you get to take more break? Never heard of such a thing.-- tatterdemalion, Jun 03 2017 If people aren't prepared to support the NHS by buying cigarettes, I don't see why they should get extra breaks.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jun 03 2017 [8th]'s idea seems better than mine upon first (tired) consideration.-- notexactly, Jun 03 2017 Why can't they keep working while they smoke?-- pocmloc, Jun 03 2017 Because, for some inconceivably stupid reason, smoking in the workplace was banned. This coincided (and it may indeed be purely coincidence) with a 28% decrease in productivity in jobs requiring intellectual input.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jun 03 2017 However, there was a corresponding substantial reduction in lost-time accidents in occupations involving the use of volatile organic solvents ...-- 8th of 7, Jun 03 2017 Depends on the site and the crew. The sub-contractors usually go for a beer at lunch. They are self-employed and nobody tells them they can't if the guys are worth their salt because skilled labor is hard to find. Some of the crews, not to point fingers, {cough}mostly painters and drywall guys{cough}, spend a majority of their days stoned. Those jobs are extremely brain-dead once your hands know what they're doing so they tend to do better work that way.As for tile setting... if I know I'm about to spend a solid eight to ten hours on my knees packing grout into cracks and wiping it clean, well then... hey, quit Bogarting that thing and pass it over here, it's not a microphone you know.-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jun 03 2017 //For those of you who've been near a job recently,// I haven't been too near a job recently, but I found something even better. I started a company, advertised (OK, didn't advertise) for a CEO, interviewed myself and gave myself the job. It's great - my boss lets me smoke and drink to my heart's content, and he's very relaxed about working hours. Of course, he's a bit of an egoist, but I can live with that. As soon as he starts paying me a salary, I'm going to ask him for a raise and I would bet my best hat that he'll agree. The only real downside is that he takes his holidays the same time as me, which means I never have time at work without the boss being around. But apart from that it's simply fab.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jun 03 2017 What if robots took breaks and drugs ?-- popbottle, Jun 04 2017 But if you're going to try and make real the costs of smoking and present this as a financial burden to smokers, you also have to give them the benefits - smokers generally die soon after retirement, meaning that the Government and pension providers have to pay out less in pensions, and they die reasonably quickly, so less is spent on protracted hospital stays and on social care. Likewise, tax breaks should be given to motorcyclists, because of the huge number of transplant organs (which benefit the nation as a whole) which come from this small group.-- hippo, Jun 05 2017 <Nods head in agreement. Considers pointing out that tobacco tax revenues not only match the additional costs of smoking-related illness, but exceeded them many, many times over. Tobacco revenue to the UK government in 2015/16 was £12bn.>-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jun 05 2017 // tax breaks should be given to motorcyclists, because of the huge number of transplant organs //
Taking that to its logical conclusion, car and truck drivers should get a cash reward for knocking down cyclists and motorcyclists. You're not in favour of that, shirley ?
Actually, being paid to run down cyclists ... hmmm ....-- 8th of 7, Jun 05 2017 //Actually, being paid to run down cyclists ... hmmm .... //
But... but that would take the fun out of it, and you could lose your amateur standing.-- FlyingToaster, Jun 05 2017 Maybe the money could be donated to charity ?-- 8th of 7, Jun 05 2017 // Considers pointing out that tobacco tax revenues not only match the additional costs of smoking-related illness, but exceeded them many, many times over. Tobacco revenue to the UK government in 2015/16 was £12bn.//
£12 billion - is that all? The NHS budget was £120 billion for 2016-7. Let's stop wasting time with this small change.-- Loris, Jun 05 2017 It's hardly my fault if anti-tobacco propaganda has made a dent in tax revenues (though, in fact, they've held up pretty well thanks to dedicated hedonists such as myself).
According to the tobacco nazis (ASH), treating smoking-related diseases costs the NHS £2bn per year. Given their stance, it's probably fair to assume that this is an overestimate. But let's let that figure stand.
I'd like my £10bn back, please. Oh, and what I'm owed from last year. Oh, and the year before please.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jun 05 2017 On that note, I would like to have back the decades worth of workers-compensation/extortion I've yet to draw from since it doesn't seem to exist when claimed.
That would be good.
Hey, and all of those unemployment benefits I've paid into but claimed less that a thousandth of.
...and how about that government pension plan which won't be worth a plug-nickel given current monetary inflation...
Yeah, let's talk about that stuff!-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jun 05 2017 random, halfbakery