I disagree, I should be able to exercise my rights off the job with no consequence to my employment.
I will not send them a letter thanking them. The stigma against smokers is becoming a fascist crusade to punish anyone that likes to smoke.
What about the people that REEK of cologne/aftershave.perfume, or have bad hygiene or medical issues that cause them to stink?
What about someone that is bald? Or ugly? Or obese?
You think an employer should be able to dictate what their employees eat, watch, drink, where they sleep, or get entertainment? You’re walking a slippery slope I think. Banning smokers from working sets a dangerous precedent to take away more freedoms.
What will you say when employers require you to have an RFID chip implanted into your hand or forehead so they can deposit your $ into. I imagine it will be “employers should be able to hire and fire anyone they want”.
That's where it is heading...the rest of this is just 'conditioning'.
I believe it was Halifax, Nova Scotia that passed a law forbidding body scents such as those in the workplace...
Ok, you have outed yourself as a true blue liberal.
Let me tell you what Liberty is. LIBERTY is the right to do as you please without having your pursuit of happiness controlled by the government. You have every right to smoke cigarettes until you die a slow and painful death by emphysema like my mother did. And I should should have the right to hire you or not hire you for my business based on any criteria I choose including whether you are ugly or fat or bald or short or any insidious reason I choose and if you don't like it, then or you smoke or you are ugly or bald, then you can choose not to work for me or you can go to work for someone else or start your own business and hire only ugly, bald, fat smokers.
The slippery slope you seem to be concerned about works the other way. The GOVERNMENT has for decades been taking away the rights of employers and landlords to hire who they want and rent to who they want. They are even prohibiting businesses from exercising their religious consciences and forcing them to pay for insurance for abortion or requiring that they provide photography or food at gay weddings.
A private employer should have every right to pick and choose their employees and customers based on any stupid criteria that they choose. They don't owe you a job and if they think that smoking is a sin, then they should have the right to tell you to take a hike (until your lungs turn to cement and you drown in your own mucous cause you can no longer cough it out).
Welcome to Free Republic, you dedicated liberal.
IBTZ
Do you have the right to refuse to work for a company allows smoking? Do you have the right to quit your job if your boss who smokes is promoted and replaced by a non-smoker, or a beer drinker, or enjoys canoing on the weekends? Or should the law protect your employer by requiring you to continue to work for that employer because of your value to the company?
It seems that employees want employers to relinquish some of their property rights in the companies they own while employees remain free to work for whomever they wish.
I say let the market control.