58 per cent employees say smoking breaks are unfair

London: Fancy a smoke? It might be putting off your colleagues. More than half of the workers resent colleagues who take smoking breaks and think the time should come out of their salaries, a new UK survey has found.

A total of 58 per cent workers get angry over "unfair" breaks while just one in four (26 per cent) think smokers should be paid the same, a survey by a UK-based consumer website found. However, 16 per cent said they should only be paid less if taking more breaks lowered their productivity, the Daily Express reported.

"We were stunned. It's amazing to think that a majority of the country is silently seething about the amount of time smokers spend away from their desks," said Sean O'Meara, spokesman for the website Watch My Wallet. Amanda Sandford, of anti-smoking charity Ash, said smokers should have shorter lunchtimes or stay later, the paper reported.

More than half of the workers resent colleagues who take smoking breaks and think the time should come out of their salaries.

Simon Clark, of the smokers' lobby group Forest, said taking time out for a cigarette was no different to coffee breaks or making personal calls.

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