Recently, I learned that one of my cousins had started smoking for the first time in their late twenties. They’d ignored all the peer pressure through high school and college, yet they somehow found themselves starting the habit as an adult.
When I asked why, the answer was simple: They’d started working in a restaurant.
Anyone who’s worked in the service industry knows that it can be highly stressful work. Nicotine certainly offers a way to help manage that stress, but it’s far from the only way. So why did someone who grew up surrounded by anti-smoking campaigns still end up with a cigarette in hand?
Honestly? They just wanted a break.
See, breaks for hourly workers are far from guaranteed. Missouri (where my cousin works) doesn’t require businesses to give their shift workers an allotted time to take a load off. However, because so many people who work in the service industry still tend to smoke, smoke breaks continue to be a cultural norm that many of these workplaces follow. As a result, joining in on smoke breaks was often the only downtime that my cousin got during shifts that could be as long as 12 hours.
These outdated and unequal rules around breaks don’t just have a negative impact on employees, either. Businesses that encourage this pattern, even unintentionally, are just as likely to face a heavy cost.
The cost of smoking
Smoking cigarettes is expensive. An individual who smokes a pack a day will spend around $2,900 per year, and the cost to their health will be significantly higher. In fact, the U.S. spends more than an estimated $600 billion on health care and lost productivity every year, thanks to smoking.
The practice of smoking can also cause myriad serious health conditions—it harms nearly every organ in the body and increasing the chance of cancer, heart disease, lung disease, diabetes and more. It’s also the leading cause of preventable death in the United States, causing around 1 in 5 of all deaths each year.
Who’s most at risk
In the last 60 years, the number of Americans who smoke has greatly decreased. More than three out of five adults who once smoked have since quit, and the total rate of smokers had fallen to 11.5% as of 2021—a stark difference from the 42.4% of Americans who smoked in the 1960s.
However, this improvement in smoking rates hasn’t happened equally across all parts of society. A 2011–2013 study from the CDC shows that 30% of those who work in accommodations and food services smoked compared to merely 19.6% of all working U.S. adults. A decade later, that number hasn’t changed.
When you begin to factor in demographics like income and race, this disparity becomes even more stark. In fact, over the last 20 years, smoking among those below the poverty level has increased from 14.8% to 19.2%. While the number of smokers has noticeably decreased for those who are white (from 76.4% to 69.5%), it has actually increased for those who are Black, Hispanic, Indigenous, Asian and among other non-white racial groups.
Why “breaks” are so broken for hourly workers
According to employment attorney Jessica Childress, “currently, there are no federal laws that require employees to receive breaks while working… [and] there is no federal requirement regarding how long a single shift can be.”
True, there are some states that have laws concerning one or both of these areas, but it’s far from universal. Even though OSHA recommends that a normal work shift be kept to eight hours or less, there are no federal laws—and few state laws—enforcing this recommendation. Similarly, though the Fair Labor Standards Act does offer protections concerning overtime for those who work more than 40 hours in a week, it has no impact on how long a person can be expected to work in a day.
The average shift for a restaurant worker, like my cousin, is 6.4 hours—but on days where someone is assigned a double, one shift can easily stretch for longer than 12 consecutive hours. During this time, the worker is likely standing or walking and may not be allowed any time to sit down, eat, drink or have a single moment away from the chaos of customers.
So what about smoke breaks? After all, there are no laws that require employers to offer these either.
Because so many in the service industry and other high-stress areas already smoke, the routine of smoke breaks tends to be more inherently ingrained in the culture than any other kind. Sure, you can try to take a “smoke break” without smoking—but no one has to allow it.
Childress also notes that “if a company has a policy allowing for smoke breaks, it is a best practice to allow all employees (even if the employee is a non-smoker) access to the same break.” However, because smoking (or not smoking, in this case) isn’t a legally protected category, it’s not considered legally discriminatory to deny a non-smoking employee access to a smoke break.
How businesses and managers can help
The easiest solution is simple: Give all employees access to breaks, regardless of whether or not they smoke. After all, time away from work has been shown to increase productivity while decreasing injuries and mistakes.
If you’re looking to further curb a smoking-prone workforce, the Surgeon General recommends creating smoke-free policies for your workplace. Even if you continue to have designated smoking areas, it’s helpful to provide a smoke-free area for breaks that any employee can use. This helps those who are trying to quit avoid temptation while eliminating the secondhand smoke exposure for non-smoking employees.
While improving employee break policies won’t solve all your smoking dilemmas, it’s a great start to creating a safer, healthier and more engaged workplace for everyone.
Photo by Alexandros Michailidis/Shutterstock.com
