Posted on 02/25/2005 6:28:40 AM PST by T.Smith
Feb. 24 - Weyco may be one of the only large companies in the country that can boast not only a smoke-free workplace, but a smoke-free workforce. Achieving that status, however, didn’t come without a lot of effort—and controversy.
Howard Weyers, the founder and CEO of the Michigan-based health-benefits-management company, attracted a lot of media attention—and the ire of workers’ advocates—when he let go four employees recently after they refused to stop smoking. Civil-rights activists accused the company of discrimination, arguing that Weyers was punishing workers for engaging in a legal activity on their own time.
Weyers claimed that he gave his employees plenty of notice and opportunities and incentives to quit. “I gave them a little over 15 months to decide which is most important: my job or tobacco?” says Weyers.
That’s a question that more Americans may be asking themselves these days. Most companies already ban tobacco use in the workplace and more than a half dozen states and hundreds of cities have enacted laws to the same effect. Now, citing rising health-insurance costs and concerns about employees’ well-being, a growing number of companies are refusing to hire people who smoke, even if they do so on their own time and nowhere near their jobs. An estimated 6,000 employers no longer hire smokers, according to the National Workrights Institute, an affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
"Constitutionally, any privatly owned company can establish any employment policies that they desire. The employees of that same company can also join together and shut down the company."
Yes, and if this sort of nonsense becomes widespread and offensive enough, people may also choose to elect legislators who will take this freedom away from employers.
I can't say I'd want to work for a company that treats its employees like this, anyway. But then I have skills that allow me a choice in who I work for.
Don't you mean they can quit and that temporarily that would close the company?
They have, of course, no moral way to "shut down the company".
It's quite usual for people to enlist government to use violence to take away freedoms from other people in exchange for power. People use the government to ursurp the rights of others all the time. Those people are called thugs.
If a smoker, woman or elderly person is physically unable to perform the job, then they should not be hired. However, since every individual is different, this should be determined by a standardized test which is applied to all employees.
The rules and laws for Government employment is, and must be different from a privatly owned business.
I wonder when this seeming concept of "my job" became so prevalent. Unions? Civil rights? Regardless, it's odd how so many conservatives appear to have bought into it to some degree.
hmmm. glad i live here where we have some rights...
Physical stamina requirements, I have no problem with....as long as those requirements are utilized evenly across the board.
And I agree about difference in rules and laws for government and private employers.........Private employers should have much more leeway than the government.
That was a clumsy wording on my part. Sorry.
People do not have a gun pointed at their head that forces them to work anywhere particular. The employers have no power to force people to work for them on the employers terms. Both sides are free to make the arrangements or not as they see the benefits to themselves.
Wouldn't this apply to illegal, and legal prescription drug tests as well?
As a private citizen, I refuse to purchase any product from companies which discriminate against smokers.
I will only work for companies which do not discriminate, and absolutly will not purchass products from any businesses that has established a no-smoking policy.
If a businees is stupid enough to discriminate against 1/4 of the American public, it is their profit loss.
The point is, both sides have rights. You seem to be asserting rights which do not exist.
It is quite common for people to enlist government to use force to get what they want and call those things "rights". Being common doesn't make it correct.
You said: so them what is keeping your employer for stating that it is a new condition of your employment that you don't drink - even on your own time. are you saying that the only recourse is to quit?
What if we look at this the other way around? Can an employee quit his job because his employer smokes at home? Or must he continue to work there? What if the boss watches a tv show or follows a sports team that the employee finds unacceptable? Can the employee quit, or must he continue to work there? Of course the employee can quit for whatever reason, or no reason. The employer has the same right. Is the employer stupid? Maybe.
Smokers do not hesitate to rely upon property rights in the argument against smoking bans in private bars and restaurants-- and I agree with them. If it is your property, you can do what you want. Businesses are privately owned property. Employers can hire and fire at will, at least in most states, at least for now.....
Actually, yes. Many actors, atheletes, and other occupations prohibit such activities as terms of employment.
Incorrect. Absent force, no one has to work there. And the company is under no obligation to pay more than it has agreed to.
I agree with you.
But the reality is that much like people don't band together to legalize marijuanna, etc ... they are not going to do so to protect the rights of tobacco addicts either.
Smokers are their worst PR agents (I challenge you to walk one city block and count the cigarette buts without giving up, or driving down for an hour while having less than 5 cigarettes flicked out a window at you).
So, while you may boycott these folks, I don't think that it will become a popular cause.
if it is my property, and i can do what i want, can i really do what i want if my job can be forfeited based upon what i do on my property, on my time?
under these circumstances, am i really free?
true, but these conditions are negotiated and put into place with both parties agreemnents, should th conditions change,. the parties renegotiate. there is no unilateral encroachment upon a person's free time without compensation as there seems to be here.
You never have been.
As a rather militant smoker, I refuse to comply with anti-smoking laws on public property. I also refuse to comply with laws which illegally enforce anti-smoking regulations upon private property.
However, I firmly support the concept of private property!
What a privatly owned business establishes as their employment policies, or their selection of customers, is entirely up to them.
True, but much like a credit card can and does change it's terms on a seeminlgy monthly basis, so can a private employer. There is no renegotiation. You either accept the terms or get another card.
I suppose you could try to negotiate the terms, but there is no legal requirement for the company to accept them.
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