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Zigarettenpausen mit Konsequenzen

A paralegal who defied a new policy at work that banned smoking breaks for hourly employees was fired legally, a New York appeals court ruled Thursday. Karen Kridel had worked for a Rochester law firm for about 14 months. Every day, she took a five-minute smoke break in the morning and another in the afternoon. She said she often worked an extra few minutes anyway, unpaid, and took any calls during her lunch break in the cafeteria. But breaks outside of lunch were then prohibited in an October 2006 e-mail.

"If you are addicted to cigarettes, you can't just do that," said Kridel, 56, of Rochester. "You should treat your employees fairly," she said from her new job. "Within an eight-hour day you are entitled to take a break in the morning and in the afternoon. It's a benefit to everyone, especially co-workers. You can get pretty crabby She said a smoke break re-energized her.

"I didn't expect to get fired for smoking," she said.

Sowas kann unbelehrbaren Rauchern auch hierzulande passieren.

Full post as published by jurabilis - German bLAWg from Berlin. on August 14, 2008 (boomark / email).