Posted on 04/20/2005 5:36:46 AM PDT by FlyLow
It's nice to hear Americans talk about privacy and fighting for their rights. But sometimes I have to say: Do you know what you're talking about?
In Okemos, Mich., a 71-year-old health nut named Howard Weyers runs a health-care benefits company called Weyco. Weyers thinks his employees should be healthy, too, so years ago, he hired an in-house private trainer. Any employee who works with her and then meets certain exercise goals earns a $110 bonus per month.
So far, so good. But then, in November 2003, Weyers made an announcement that shocked his staff: "I'm introducing a smoking policy," he said.
"You're not going to smoke if you work here. Period."
No smoking at work. No smoking at home. No nicotine patch or nicotine gum. The company would do random tests and fire anyone with nicotine in his system.
"Two hundred people in a room," Weyers recalls, "and they went at me."
"I yelled out," said Anita Epolito, "'You can't do that to me, it's against the law.'"
That's not true. In Michigan and 19 other states, employers have the legal right to fire anyone, as long as they don't violate discrimination laws (for age, gender, race, religion, disabilities, etc.).
Weyers gave his employees 15 months to quit smoking, and he offered assistance to help.
Today, he calls the policy a success. Twenty Weyco employees who smoked, stopped. Some of their spouses even quit.
(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...
Which ones?
Do you think that employers should be required to hire smokers?
I like Stossel.
I went to the original article and skimmed over it and still didn't see anything where 19-20 states were mentioned.
Why not? Smoking is legal. Even if smoker's are forced outside for a 10 minute break in the morning then lunch then a 10 minute break in the afternoon, I would say this is fair.
Private business owner's can hire whomever they like. Smokers or non. That's why they are private businesses.
If my boss told me I couldn't own guns at home or go to the range on my free time I would tell him to kiss my ass. I'm not getting paid enough to give up what I enjoy doing in my free time. Maybe the employees that objected to the policy should re-evaluate their situation?
I took a class in human resources management in engineering school, and we learned about a great comparison between U.S. and Japanese management styles. There were five key points on which these management styles differed. Japanese management, for example, is treated the same as their employees for the most part but is perceived to be treated differently only because of the way in which they carry out their jobs. An illustration of this would be parking privileges at a manufacturing facility. At a U.S. plant, the management parks closest to the building because they have reserved parking spaces there. At a Japanese plant, there are no reserved parking spaces at all -- but the management parks closest to the building because they arrive first in the morning.
Anyway . . . in this class we learned that the ideal management style in the modern economy is actually a hybrid of the U.S. and Japanese styles, combining the Japanese style in four of the five areas with the U.S. style in only one. The one area in which the U.S. style was deemed to be superior to the Japanese style involved the personal relationship between the employer and employee.
In Japanese companies, employees are expected to meet certain expectations of the employer in many personal aspects of their lives. The employer wants to exercise some control (or, at the very least, provide some constructive, benevolent advice) over things like where their employees live, where their kids go to school, where they play golf, etc. Research in human resources issues indicates that this can be extremely stifling, and that the ideal relationship between the employer and employee should not extend past the front door of the workplace. In a typical successful U.S. company, the employer doesn't give a flying sh!t what their employees do over the weekend, as long as they show up for work in good health on Monday morning.
"Do you think that employers should be required to hire smokers?"
Why not? Smoking is legal. Even if smoker's are forced outside for a 10 minute break in the morning then lunch then a 10 minute break in the afternoon, I would say this is fair.
Private business owner's can hire whomever they like. Smokers or non. That's why they are private businesses.
"...still didn't see anything where 19-20 states were mentioned."
Eighth paragraph.....
"That's not true. In Michigan and 19 other states, employers have the legal right to fire anyone, as long as they don't violate discrimination laws (for age, gender, race, religion, disabilities, etc.)."
The states being referred to in the article ar "Employment At Will" states where you can be fired or you can quit for any reason or no reason. Unlike "Right to Work" states where there must be cause.
>>>Basically that's what's being discussed here. Can a man sell his freedoms, thusly, can one man buy (with a paycheck) an other mans liberty. >>>
Exactly!
I'm not familiar with Michigan law.
"Corporations have no Rights"
Does IBM have the right to tell employees what to wear? Maybe this is matter of semantics.
I stand by my opinion (whether it applies in this particular circumstance or not), regarding the rights of private employers.
In fact, they were known for precisely that for a long, long time.
>>>How about the lost time for the gals who use this as an excuse to take off? I just shake my head>>>
That is so crazy to me. I have never missed work due to that. I have WANTED to, but I grew up with if you are sick enough to miss school/work, you must be too sick to do ANYTHING. A habit I am teaching my children. Some people have been coddled all their lives and use this as an excuse to get out of things, (work included I guess)
Sexual orientation is a protected class in very few places. Most places, you could fire this guy on the spot.
"Or they should surrender their special privlidges granted by the government, and give up their korporate charter and start a sole propreitorship."
It's nice to see somebody around here gets it :)
I've been waiting for this other shoe to drop. I didn't have to wait long . . .
Who'll be the next in line at Weyco?
That is a clear case of religious discrimination. However, you shouldn't take this case to mean that an employer can't fire you for things you do outside of work hours. In most cases, they can.
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