A county children services agency unilaterally promulgated and implemented a smoking ban for all agency buildings. The union filed a grievance, noting that there had been a 14-year practice of permitting smoking in the workplace. An arbitrator ruled that the policy was reasonable and did not violate the parties’ collective bargaining agreement. The arbitrator “does not find that the privilege of smoking under the previous policy had become a binding past practice that grew into a condition of employment.” Thus, he found, “a change in the work rule on smoking was within the permissible scope of management’s prerogative here.”
95 LA 1011 (1990).