Employee challenges Chrysler plant's smoking policy

FENTON, Mo. -- An asthmatic worker at a DaimlerChrysler assembly plant is pressing the automaker to bar smoking at her workplace, saying the fumes already have sent her to the hospital five times this year.

But despite Rossie Judd's demands, a local union chief surmises "it's going to be an emotional issue," given that many of the assembly line workers at the minivan factory smoke.

Judd, 47, has accused the automaker of unfair labor practice in her filing with the National Labor Relations Board, and she has filed a disability discrimination complaint with the U.S. Department of Labor.

Such administrative challenges often are steps preceding a federal suit.

DaimlerChrysler has declined to discuss Judd's allegations until the complaints are resolved. And Larry Robertson, president of the United Auto Workers' Local 110, called the matter "a little touchy."

Still, Judd presses on.

"If the workers are in a big old chain-smoking night, I'll have a cough and, the next thing you know, my bronchial tubes will start to spasm," said Judd, an eight-year veteran of the plant. "I want clean air."

Judd claims her quest for relief from the smoke has been resisted by the union, which wants to keep the smokers happy, and the company, which wants to keep the union happy.

DaimlerChrysler says it allows smoking in 25 of its 26 U.S. manufacturing plants; the exception is Newark, Del. Delaware enacted a law that required that plant to become smoke-free last November.

At the factory here, Robertson said, smoking is allowed on what he calls the large, open assembly floor of the well-ventilated plant. The south plant, where Judd works her $24-an-hour job, has ceilings 60 feet high and covers some 2.64 million square feet.

"Usually people are six or more feet apart. You might not even smell" the smoke, he said, saying that when it comes to Judd's demands, "I'm guessing it's going to be an emotional issue."

Judd, a single mother of a grown son, is to return to work Wednesday after being on stress leave, with the company having paid for her to attend stress-management classes.

Judd claims that as many as six people smoke within eight feet of her, and that her repeated requests that they refrain from lighting up have been met by harassment.

"People don't want to hear it," she said. "They're under stress, too."

Daimler-Chrysler allows smoking in open manufacturing areas, said Dan Bodene, a DaimlerChrysler spokesman in Auburn Hills, Mich.

"Basically, our employees want it," he said. "It's been (that way) for a long time."

As for the union's role, Robertson said the union had "done everything we're required to do" for Judd. When she told her shop steward she wanted a discrimination grievance filed, it was done.

"In the end, I'm sure whatever the resolution is, it'll be for the betterment of everyone involved," Robertson said.

In Missouri, the State Clean Indoor Air Act protects workers in public and private indoor workplaces. Companies may designate no more than 30 percent of the total workspace for smoking areas, said Janet Wilson, bureau chief for health promotions for the Missouri Department of Health.

"The smoking areas have to be very distinct from where others are working," she said.

The plant makes 1,040 Chrysler Voyager, Dodge Caravan and Dodge Grand Caravan minivans a day on two shifts.