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"It'd be a lot cleaner, that's for sure," says Richard Tate of banning smoking on the assembly line where cigarettes are a fixture. He works at DaimlerChrysler's Warren Stamping plant.Smoking on the line splits autoworkers
UAW defends lighting up on the job as companies push healthier habits.
Dorothy Martell relaxes with a cigarette after work. She says smoking eases stress during a long, repetitive shift at DaimlerChrysler's Warren Truck Assembly Plant.
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WARREN -- Drinks in hand and a stream of cigarette smoke twisting between them, Christine Duve and Dorothy Martell sat at the bar haggling over the growing debate over smoking on their auto factory lines.
Duve, who says she recently split with her fiancé over his tobacco habit, vented about working in a plant with stinky, smoky air where cigarette butts litter the floor and hubcaps double as ashtrays.
"I choose to live a healthy lifestyle, but I'm stuck in a factory with smoke in the air," said Duve, who has worked at DaimlerChrysler AG's Warren Truck Assembly Plant for seven years. "It's so unhealthy."
Martell -- puffing on a Marlboro at Fran's Roadhouse in Warren near midnight Thursday -- said smoking isn't that bad. A worker on the trim line at the Warren plant, Martell says smoking eases stress during a long, repetitive shift.
"There are people out there who can't not have a cigarette," Martell said.
While many businesses ban smoking at work, and have even fired workers for smoking off the job, cigarettes remain a fixture on the Detroit automakers' assembly lines.
The rising cost of caring for employees and retirees is a significant problem for Chrysler, Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp. which spent $10 billion on health care last year combined.
The right to smoke at work, long defended by the United Auto Workers, has drawn fire as the automakers, particularly GM, struggle to lower escalating health care costs and encourage workers to adopt healthy habits. GM expects its health care costs to grow $300 million this year to $5.6 billion.
Tommy Thompson, former U.S. health and human services secretary, drew attention to the issue last week when, during a speech in Detroit, he marveled that health care expenses now cost U.S. automakers an average of $1,525 per vehicle. Thompson said he'd like to see the UAW and management come up with ways to cut down on smoking.
"It's contradictory," said autoworker Mark Bear, who quit smoking nine years ago but has to fight cravings while working 12 feet away from two co-workers who smoke on the line. "They're paying all this money into having our health checked here, but then they let them smoke."
Smoking is banned in most administrative offices and the UAW's Solidarity House headquarters in Detroit. But it's still common in most Michigan plants. Policies depend on union negotiation and local and state smoking laws.
Foreign automakers with U.S. plans typically don't allow smoking on the assembly line. Auto plants in Ingham and Genesee counties went smoke-free when the counties banned workplace smoking.
Some workers, depending on their jobs, can smoke on the assembly line. Some plants have smoking rooms. Others allow cigarettes in break areas on the floor. For the most part, the issue is decided plant by plant during contract negotiations with individual union locals.
Chrysler's workers -- both smokers and nonsmokers -- described scenes at Warren Truck Assembly where cigarette butts are tossed on the floor and into wayward car parts and workers occasionally sit in freshly made cars, cigarettes hanging from their mouths. Some employees say they've caught co-workers using the cigarette lighters in new cars.
Autoworker Marco Johnson said workers sometimes drop smoldering butts into trash piles, lighting small fires that shut down work for minutes at a time.
"People use smoking to relieve a little bit of the stress that builds up. It's a comfort zone," said Johnson, standing outside the Mound Road plant at the end of the second shift.
Understanding the smoking issue requires understanding the culture of big labor and factory politics, employees say.
Smoking is so widespread that nonsmokers are reluctant to upset the masses by fighting for a ban, said Duve of Brownstown Township. Smokers practice courtesy -- standing away from nonsmokers and smoking in areas where ceilings are high -- that helps them keep a low profile.
"We're not like any other business," said Scott Buhler, a nonsmoker from Sterling Heights who works for Chrysler. "This place is its own little city. Everything is contained here, where we eat and where we take our breaks. It's not an office."
The UAW -- from local leaders to its president -- has long protected employee rights to smoke in the workplace.
UAW President Ron Gettelfinger, a former smoker, defends the practice and says workers are exposed to chemicals, oil mist and other materials just as much as second-hand smoke.
Gettelfinger said the UAW does support smoking cessation and other health programs, but doesn't support a ban on smoking in assembly plants as a way to lower health care costs.
"Auto plants are huge complexes and many workers on the jobs are in isolated areas, without a lot of people around them, where it doesn't cause a problem for anyone," Gettelfinger said last week.
Last month in Wayne County, one union leader tried unsuccessfully to curtail a ban on smoking in most private, suburban workplaces. UAW Region 1-A Director Jimmy Settles took issue with the ban and faxed a letter to county commissioners reminding them that UAW members were "upset and angry" when Washtenaw County adopted a similar ban in 2002.
The letter held up the ban, but commissioners eventually passed it, even rejecting an attempt to make an exception for unionized workplaces. The regulation is scheduled to take effect in June, making factories in suburban Wayne County smoke-free.
"It'd be a lot cleaner, that's for sure," said Richard Tate, who works in the tool shop at Warren Stamping, about a smoking ban. Neither Tate nor his co-workers smoke. "It doesn't bother me," he said.
The issue isn't one divided along smoking lines. Several nonsmokers defend the rights of their nicotine-addicted colleagues.
"As long as smoking is legal, they should be allowed to do it," said nonsmoker Bill Lovell. "We don't want the company telling us what to do."
And some who smoke admit they'd be more likely to quit if they had to refrain during the workday.
Will Garner said he picked up the habit six years ago when he got a job at Visteon's instrument panel plant in Saline. Then a 23-year-old nonsmoker, Garner said he'd get bored during breaks. As he sat among smoking co-workers, he decided to try it out.
"I've been a smoker ever since," he said. "With all the chemicals around this place, it's stupid to worry about it."
You can reach Sharon Terlep at (313) 223-4686 or sterlep@detnews.com. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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