).  An arbitrator ruled that an employer did not have the right to establish a policy prohibiting employees from smoking in the fabricating and other work areas during working hours but allows them to smoke in the same areas during breaks and the lunch period.  He noted that there is a past practice permitting smoking, there’s no evidence that enforcement of the rule would reduce tobacco consumption, the employer does not contend that smoking interferes with worker productivity and the shop is “in an open are where smoke and fumes rise out of the area quickly and employees largely work at some distance from one another.”

69 LA 930 (1977).