The Stepford Employees

The Washington Times ^ | Feb. 5, 2005 | Bob Barr

[MisterRepublican]

In last year's remake of the 1970s classic science fiction file, "The Stepford Wives," a group of techno-weirdos set out to transform imperfect women into perfect wives. Of course, the plan fails because of... well, a lot of reasons.

But the point is, the world remains as full of weirdos today seeking to create the perfect person as when Pygmalion tried many centuries ago. Now, the "Stepford Search" has come to corporate America.

Weyco Inc., a Michigan company, has decided to fire any employee who smokes. Not just any employee who smokes on the job. Any employee who smokes anywhere, anytime, anyhow. Why? To help the employees make healthful life choices and become better persons; to help the employees "manage their health care."

How does the company ensure its employees remain truly and permanently "smoke free?" Mandatory "drug" tests. If traces of the "devil weed" tobacco are found, the hapless employee who thought he or she lived in a free country — one in which a citizen could practice such horrible habits as lighting up a cigarette or cigar in the "privacy" of his or her home — is summarily fired.

In the 1950s and 1960s, the decades of my misspent youth, we harbored the illusion such menaces as nuclear war or communist invasion were the real enemies of freedom. How wrong we were. The good folks running America just four or five decades later, including the Weyco Gestapo, know the real enemy of man is not the trivial nuclear holocaust, but smoking. And they will leave no freedom unturned in their zeal to root it out wherever it might still lurk.

[SheLion]

It stops with running these sorts of people out of business. Bankrupt them. Turn them into paupers and ensure they never run another business where they can attempt to exercise their twisted control fetish on a free people.

It's one thing to control the atmosphere at work, but to want complete control over the employee's is just mind boggling.

I read about this happening back in 1941. I find this rather scary.

No matter what one thinks about cigarettes and tobacco, it is still a legal commodity.

So what is next? Stock Pepsi over Coke? No candy bar vending machines? I hate to believe this is happening.

When the government said "It's for the children, I believe they were talking about all of US and the government shall be our parents."

I do not like this one bit.

[SheLion]

I'm just baffled and amazed at how thoroughly the liberal agenda has actually poisoned the minds of so many "conservatives," and it isn't only relegated to the smoking agenda.....there are many other lefty agendas where the "conservatives" have drank the Kool-Aid.

I know exactly what you mean. I see it every day in Free Republic.

These few that we have in FR have NO respect for our party.

To them it's all for one and one for all unless you are a smoker. Well, we stand up for the rights of ALL peoples.

Or at least that is what we are supposed to be doing.

[TAdams8591]

Excellent point!

[SheLion]

No matter who you are, unless you somehow remain healthy up to the moment of your death, you will cost health insurers money.

Not trying to be a smart azz here, but what about those of us who have our own health insurance?  A lot of us have our own, so no one will have to pay for me should I ever become sick.  I pay for myself.

[TAdams8591]

I agree with your comment and have many times made the same observation.

[sweetliberty]

I just thought it would be interesting to see where G.Love was going with his premise that employers should be able to refuse to hire or to fire anyone for any reason. Seems he does think that discrimination should be acceptable based on skin color, handicap, weight or whatever. Stay tuned.

[Nowhere Man]

I'm sure that some will think I am getting into tinfoil territory here, but I think this is part of the wider plan of the new totalitarianism. You have to break the backs of private businesses, particularly small businesses, which are more cost effective to bankrupt than to pay off. Totalitarianism cannot exist in an ownership society. Bankruptcy breeds dependency and the more of the population that is dependent, the more manageable the slaves workers become.

I wonder that myself, if we are headed towards something like we see in "Rollerball" or if you're a Playstation junky like I am, the "Shinra Corporation" like we see in the game "Final Fantasy VII." I do remember a thread on here a while ago about companies banning the carry of firearms and so on. I remember when I waa in college, we had a discussion on the role of the Constitution in my labor law class where it is "up in the air" to whether the Constitution's role is to prevent government from running over the people's rights but does it also extend into business or private concerns? Although the instructor was more of a moderate, a little left of center (although not a rabid Michael Moore type), I do admit he does make a good point on this one. We will have to see where this goes but one thing that concerns me is that we could be getting rid of the government as our Master, which is good, but are we trading it for a corporate Master?

[G.Love]

You haven't been paying attention to what I'm saying. I'm talking about what should be legal and you're talking about what people should do. There's a difference between something being legal and it being the right thing to do. Legally, I can spray paint my own house with grafitti if I want to. That doesn't mean I am going to do it.

I am not in favor of this policy. Good grief, I'm a smoker! All I am saying is that it should be legal for Weyco to make this policy or any other policy it wants to. It should be able to choose the kind of person it wishes to employ. And the current employees and general public should be equally free to protest, demonstrate, boycott, and use any other peaceful means to try to get Weyco to change its mind. But they shouldn't be able to sue, and if they do, they shouldn't win.

[G.Love]

I didn't say it should be acceptable. Only legal. Go back and read my posts.

[TAdams8591]

The insurance companies still see it as you're costing them money. Thus, though I agree with your point, they don't look at it that way.

My point is that almost eveyone ends up needing healthcare. It may be more costly to keep someone alive into their 90's then to have them die from cancer in their 60's.

[sweetliberty]

"one thing that concerns me is that we could be getting rid of the government as our Master, which is good, but are we trading it for a corporate Master?"

I think it is worse than that. I think government and corporate interests are forming alliances that will be impossible for individuals or small businesses to fight. Government provides "incentives" to businesses to line up behind a certain agenda. Before long, businesses have made way for legislation to support certain hiring and firing practices and discourage others. It is much the same as with the way the federal government has systematically usurped the authority of the sovereign states. The only ones who win with this system are the lawyers and those who refuse to work at all. (Adjusting my tinfoil hat)

[TexasCowboy]

"That is extreme, in my opinion."

In my opinion, it would have never worked with the alcoholics and dual addicted I've worked with in the past, but, then, the people I've worked with would have never entered a program like that anyway.

Speaking from experience, it's scary enough to think you're going to have to give up the thing that is most important to you, but to have to give up everything else, also, presents an insurmountable mountain to climb.

I would never encourage anyone to enter a program like that.

[TAdams8591]

"Heute der Rauchen, morgens die Glauben.".

"Today the smoker, tomorrow the believer," exactly right!

[nicmarlo]

at least that is what we are supposed to be doing.

That's what we should be doing because the Constitution trumps any of our personal "tyrannical" desires. The wise Framers feared exactly that, having experienced it themselves and crafted such a document to prohibit the perpetual little Napoleons that were bound to come along.....looks like our Founding Fathers were right, again.

[sweetliberty]

"I didn't say it should be acceptable. Only legal."

Legitimacy tends to impose acceptability.

[nicmarlo]

It seems that the Kool-Aid drinkers are either becoming more in number or just more vocal.....as I seem to be seeing more and more of their type posts during the past year, most especially.

[nicmarlo]

Legitimacy tends to impose acceptability.

That's an understatement. One only need look at the homosexual agenda to see how far its come along in the past dozen years. And that is only part of their goal.....they're doing quite well in America.

[Wolfie]

If what he is getting high on is illegal, then that becomes an issue between him and the law, not the employer.

Which brings up a much broader point that most are missing. The drug testing paradigm in the U.S. was carefully implemented to specifically exclude questions of legality, so as to avoid an employee claiming 4th Amednment rights against drug testing. It's all about worker productivity, employer costs, and workplace safety. Which is why the door is wide open to what is happening at Weyco and other places.

[sweetliberty]

"I would never encourage anyone to enter a program like that."

Given a wider availability of resources, perhaps I wouldn't, but in my line of work, it is kind of a last resort program for clients who are about to lose their children permanently. It is a program that works with the parents and children, long term, with intensive therapy, both individual and group, development of parenting skills, working with the needs of the children, and developing skills for independence in the parent, while at the same time addressing the parent's addictive behavior. Often there are multiple substances involved. Overall, I have heard nothing but good reviews of the program from both professionals and clients who have graduated the program, but I hate it that success or failure for a particular client may hang on whether or not her morning coffee and cigarette are the proverbial final straw.

[Stultis]

Although I'm a smoker, and I think this is stupid, the company has a right to do this. There is a rational argument to be made, that health issues are a primary factor in productivity. Although I'm not convinced this comes close to overriding the productivity/morale hit engendered by naziesque intrusions into employees private lives.