Posted on 05/14/2005 8:42:05 AM PDT by SheLion
Firing Smokers - Reading Beyond the Headlines
Trend: You smoke? You're fired!
May 11, 2005
By Stephanie Armour
More companies are taking action against employees who smoke off-duty, and, in an extreme trend that some call troubling, some are now firing or banning the hiring of workers who light up even on their own time.
The outright bans raise new questions about how far companies can go in regulating workers' behavior when they are off the clock. The crackdown is coming in part as a way to curb soaring health care costs, but critics say companies are violating workers' privacy rights. The zero-tolerance policies are coming as more companies adopt smoke-free workplaces.
•Weyco, a medical benefits provider based in Okemos, Mich., this year banned employees from smoking on their own time. Employees must submit to random tests that detect if someone has smoked. They must also agree to searches of briefcases, purses or other belongings if company officials suspect tobacco or other banned substances have been brought on-site. Those who smoke may be suspended or fired.
About 20 employees have quit smoking under the policy, and a handful were fired after they opted out of the testing. "The main goal is to elevate the health status of our employees," says Gary Climes, chief financial officer.
•At Investors Property Management in Seattle, smokers are not hired. Employees who smoked before the ban was passed about two years ago are not fired; however, they can't get medical insurance through the company.
•Alaska Airlines has a no-smoking policy for employees, and new hires must submit to a urine test to prove they're tobacco-free.
"The debate has gone from where they can smoke to whether they can smoke," says Marshall Tanick, a Minneapolis-based employment lawyer.
Such bans are not legal everywhere: More than 20 states have passed laws that bar companies from discriminating against workers for lifestyle decisions.
There are other ways that companies are taking action against off-duty smoking, such as raising health care premiums for smokers.
Employers say it's about creating a healthy workforce. But it's also a bottom-line issue: Tobacco causes more than 440,000 deaths annually and results in more than $75 billion in direct medical costs a year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Some smokers' rights groups are vowing legal action.
"These matters will be decided in the courts," says Redmond, Wash.-based Norman Kjono, with Forces, a smokers' rights group. "You're creating a class of unemployable citizens. It won't stand."
And legal experts fear companies will try to control other aspects of employees' off-duty lifestyle, a trend that is already happening. Some companies are firing, suspending or charging higher insurance premiums to workers who are overweight, have high cholesterol or participate in risky activities.
Freedom of association. If a company wants to fire employees for smoking at home, not wearing seatbelts, not washing their hands, not brushing their teeth, or whatever ridiculous reason, then it's their right to do so. It's their business only (and certainly not the government's).
When I first heard about this, I recalled reading about the textile mills in MA about 100 years ago -- as I understand it, they had dormitories for their employees, with curfews and everything!
Maybe they'll even go to "company stores," as memorialized in "Sixteen Tons"!
I sold my soul to the company store! I didn't make much....
I agree totally. People are not free if they can't do a legal act withing their own time. Companies have no right to dictate to employees what they do in their own time. If the company pays for 24 hrs work, then they may have that right.
The antis smokers would be screaming from the rafters for more laws to stop that.
If non smoking companies have the right to not hire or fire smokers, then 'smoking' companies have the right to hire whomever they please, also.
Exactly.
I have smoked for thirty years, been with my present employer for 12, and have never missed a day of work.
I have also been smoking for about 30 years and missing work to give birth is not exactly what I would call a smoking related illness :) I was self-employed then, but had been working with the same people for over 10 years, in fact I was on the phone with a client from the hospital the morning after the baby was born. I came home with the baby on a Friday and was back on the phone with clients and at my desk on Monday morning - having my desk in my dining room did help.
But the point of course is that contrary to the propaganda, smoking employees do NOT get sick more often or account for lost productivity.
Defined as to whatever is politically expedient at the given time.
The ACLU will NOT get involved in this issue because it is about smokers and the ACLU, just like the rest of the anti-smoker nanny statists do not believe smokers have any rights.
They do if they work with many coworkers who have numerous children who bring minor health issues home from school with them.
Gosh, perhaps workers without families should be a mandate pursued for employment? /s
tee-hee!!!!!
Perverts are not allowed to have guns??
Sadly you are correct. Even sadder is the fact that many of them are frequent FReepers.
It is proven by the CDC that homosexuality is an unheathly lifestyle. Guess what would happen if companies fired homosexuals?
Sure they do!
You just have to be an illegal alien who happens to have a personal desire for the same sex, that has no religious conviction, who totes a liberal philosophy.
Then they would get involved with a case by case attitude.
At least in California, a business owner does not have that option. If smoking is outlawed in offices, all must comply.
So, no such option is available today.
The "reasoning" is that a non-smoker may want want to work there, and be irritated by being surrounded by smokers (perhaps even do a great impression of fainting).
Anyone who commutes to work in a vehicle smaller than an SUV should be fired for being a health risk.
Oooh, I like that - I'd like to use it sometime if you don't mind.
good one
And that, my FRiend, is the problem in a nutshell. But alas, the "morons" have all the money and are able to finance the pushing of the lies and those who actually know the truth are shrugged off as nutjobs.
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