A Job or a Cigarette?

Newsweek ^ | Feb. 24, 2005 | By Jennifer Barrett Ozols

[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.

[Cultural Jihad]

It's the same twisted mindset whether the issue is smoking, or immigration, or Islam: Socialist benefit entitlements, and the great injustice of their being given to others, and the comfort of finding an excuse for personal failure.

[Condor51]

Exactly right, that's why they do it - safety.

That being said, I once worked with a guy (CAD draftsman) who always seemed to be in slow motion and somewhat 'out of it'. He was subsequently let go basically for being slow and not worth the union scale he was pulling down ($60/hr cost to Co).

He went to another company and was put in the field at a power plant. Low and behold he failed the 1st drug test - along with his SON no less.

To me that answered why he was always in slow motion and 'out of it' - his brain was half fried.

[camle]

you cannot fire someone without cause. refusing to self-incriminate doesn't sound to me like cause.

this guy was on a fishing expidition to get rid of these guys. were any other people subject to this scrutiny or is he discriminating against a select few?

can he decide that riding a motorcycle or skydiving are dangerous hobbies and fire people who do this on their weekends off?

[Cultural Jihad]

No - the rules were changed, in the case of one fired individual, 15 YEARS after that person started working there.

Rules change all the time. So do pay scales. Live with it.

[Mrs.Nooseman]

You know I am a smoker,but I still believe in the right of a private company to hire who they want.
Not all companies are going to deny smokers a place to work.

I myself think, that the cost in health care has gone up do to frivolous lawsuits, that have nothing to do with smoking.

I have seen people that don't smoke visit the doctor far more than I do or that have missed far more work than I have.
The claim that smokers have increased the cost of health care is bogus,IMO.

I don't think it will be cheaper on society than our current system and yes if all companies would refuse to hire smokers the tax burden would fall onto the nonsmokers,which is totally not right and it will never happen,IMO.

[Protagoras]

Maybe I'm missing something here....why is it ok to fire smokers because they are increasing health care costs,

The reason is irrelevant. It's OK to make conditions for employment, absent force.

but it is illegal to fire gays when they also increase health care costs?

The government has used force to pander to fags. Two wrongs don't make a right. Such laws are a violation of human rights. They should be abolished.

What about people who have diabetes?

Companies have discriminated against people with illnesses for a long time and such discrimination is entirely proper. For example, a company would be within it's rights to refrain from hiring people with bubonic plague.

Companies which have what the marketplace determines to be unreasonable restrictions will not be able to attract employees and will go out of business. The freemarket adjusts such things by it's nature. Absent force, these things get worked out easily without problems.

[Cultural Jihad]

. . . can he decide that riding a motorcycle or skydiving are dangerous hobbies and fire people who do this on their weekends off?

Are you claiming that there's some inalienable right to motorcycle riding or skydiving? Of course there isn't. Not to say an employer wouldn't tolerate those things, but it is his or her own right to free association. Otherwise what would you suggest? Enslaving the boss to provide you a lifetime of paychecks because it would best suit you?

[Cultural Jihad]

Companies which have what the marketplace determines to be unreasonable restrictions will not be able to attract employees and will go out of business. The freemarket adjusts such things by it's nature. Absent force, these things get worked out easily without problems.

Well said. No employer is going to willingly damage their own business. They are there to provide a valuable product or service and thereby make a buck, not to cater to the socialist desire for entitlements.

[Gabz]

I don't like what this guy did - wouldn't want to work for him or do business with his company.......however he was perfectly within the laws of the state in which he does business.

[Protagoras]

so its' catch-22.

No it's not. You may choose to work at a company or not.

[Protagoras]

Thank you.

[Hunble]

No employer is going to willingly damage their own business.

You are absolutly correct. However, as a customer, I will not deal with any company that discrimates against smokers.

[Gabz]

you cannot fire someone without cause.

sorry my friend, in an "employment at will" state you very well can do just that. michigan is that type of employment state. That's not to say what this guy did was right - but it was within the law.

[camle]

i am saying that there are limits to the amount of control that an employers has over his employees. your take is that the employer can force his employees to do, or not do, whatever he desires and that their only recourse is to quit.

that is recidulous on it's face. if you feel that an employer can ban his employees from riding motorcycles on their own time and that thei only recourse is to quit, then you are very badly mistaken.

[camle]

perhaps a company can then ban it's employees from having sex on their own time? or from having male children?

if they don't like it they can quit, eh? how about banning employees from driving cars other than to and fro work since that is dangerous? they can always quit if they don;t like it.

or how about weekend camping trips? vacations to foreign lands?

[Ramius]

you cannot fire someone without cause.

Actually you can, in many states anyway. That is the way it should be.

What this nutball in the article doesn't get though, is that decisions like his have costs too. Finding and retaining high value employees is hard. He's making the mistake of assuming that cost is all that matters, and he's even using a fairly bogus measure of cost.

The other side of the equation is value. He might find that he and his company would be better off in the long run by attracting and keeping high-value employees and not merely low-cost employees. In fact, he's shooting himself in the foot and he's probably only getting started. When the promise of lower cost fails to materialize, which it will, he'll expand his little control-boundary to some other thing. Smart, loyal, and effective employees can more easily find good jobs elsewhere and they won't long put up with this sort of short sighted crap from him. He'll lose his best people, and keep the cheap people. That is a business that has lost sight of the target and will be overtaken by somebody else with a better perspective.

[camle]

so then I can fire you because I saw you at a gay bar last friday night? Or because i saw you dating a person of another race?

somehow i disagree.

[hchutch]

Over the short term, Weyco saves money on health insurance.

Long-term, they will have trouble, especially if this strict policy expands to other areas. People generally view their private lives as being - surprise - private; in other words, it's not the boss's business if I smoke in my home, to use an example.

Eventually, he will have a hard time recruiting folks to work for him if this prying into private lives goes too far.

[camle]

actually before someone gets ideas, I did NOT see you in any gay bars, or in any interracial relationships. i was merely using a metaphoc to make a point. i'm sure you understand...

[Just another Joe]

Menthol or regular?

Hand stuffed Samson Milde Shag.
What else?