Section Onesome of the better employers place a great deal of emphasis on
high-quality food service as well as medical services.
Companies from the United States and other industrialized
countries that have maquiladora plants in Mexico commonly
operate medical clinics at the plants, which provide treatment
for employees and their dependents.
Other health-related programs are directed at reduction
of smoking because the relationship between health problems
and smoking is well known. It has been found that employee
absenteeism rates are approximately 50 percent higher for
smokers. Rates of early disability and mortality are
approximately 300 percent higher. The combination of these
and the secondary effects of smoking cost companies an extra
$2,500 each year per smoker.^99 Because of these costs and the
detrimental impact on productivity, some employers have
adopted hard-line policies against smoking. Furthermore, there
is empirical evidence that policies prohibiting smoking on
company premises have caused employees to quit smoking.
Such a policy at a telephone company led to the following
results: “Overall, 21 percent of the respondents who were
smoking at the time they heard about the policy had quit
smoking; 42 percent of quitters said they stopped smoking
because of the policy.”^100 This decline was statistically
significant; however, the support program that accompanied
the policy did not appear to produce differences in quitting