I bet! 
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.
And then declare bankruptcy like United Airlines to get out of their pension obligations after everyone starts living 40 years into retirement.
Well, when I worked I never once took off sick because I was a smoker. I never had to use the company's health insurance for anything.
Well, they might as well fire homosexuals because they participate in unprotected anal sex. IIRC the average life expectancy is 49 yrs. Oh, let's ad people that dring adult beverages to that list.
I bet!
I'd suspect that the next target will be weight or possibly cholesterol levels.
Glucose will probably follow shortly after that. According to my doctor, the "normal" limit for the fasting glucose test has recently been reduced to 100 from the previous (I believe) 105. That change will certainly create an epidemic of "new" diabetics.
I've been meaning to tell you.......please add me to your ping list. I don't get to post regularly anymore, but I do love your threads.
If an employers feels this strongly about the health of his employees, then he should set up a barracks or dormitory and make their employees live there so they can be monitored 24/7.
Is this the next step for the American work force? Makes me shudder.
Me either, but it doesn't matter. As long as employers are footing the bill for health insurance, they are gonna be making judgments and decisions about the cost of covering you compared to covering other employees.
I don't think employer-funded insurance has been a good thing for lots of reasons.... this is just another one.
How about people that drink?
Can't have 'drunks' working for the company. Even if they only get drunk after work hours.
There are endless reasons companies can come up with.
How about not hiring Christians?
After all, according to the left, Christians are a risk, not only to themselves, but to the 'liberal' lifestyle.
I would be on the phone to someone asking this very same question. If you do, please let me know what you find out.
I find this very interesting. Why indeed did your premiums go up??
The real issue is companies are paying more for health insurance because our government insists on paying for illegal aliens as well as care-by-demand by any person not able to pay at hospital emergency rooms. States add to the increased cost by insisting that all medical insurance policies be gold-plated - you know, with "massage therapy" and hypnosis. No basic care policies are allowed. (As in WA state for example.)
This raises costs on insurance companies which they pass on to consumer companies - who now seem to be responsible for ALL our health care. In response, private companies are trying to lower some of the expense by picking on the latest fad Bad Guys... smoking, obesity, fast food.
Don't get caught up in this. Companies have no right to dictate our personal lives. Next would be genetic testing to see who "will" get "sick." It is a dangerous precendent. But most of all, we need to stop our "helpful" governent from actively pushing up health care costs by funding illegal aliens, setting mandatory insurance benefits, and insisting hospitals treat patients for free. We don't want to get side-traked, then divided on this one folks...
I agree with you.
Back in the early 90s I was fighting to get this practice prohibitted in Delaware......now I'm on the other side of the issue.........for the exact same reason I opposed the smoking ban in Delaware - too much government interference in business.
It is definitely the right of the employer to set his own rules. However, what about his long term employee's that are close to pension that smoke, do not want to quit, or can't quit.
Is this another way for the employer to fire the old timer in order to avoid paying the pension? I think he should have grand fathered this new condition of employment. He has made it very miserable for a lot of his people.
You can't post that comment without the requisite logo :)
Thank you! I have you added! :)
Making us healthy, whether we like it or not, I guess. IMO, this really has nothing to do with smoking, or cholesterol, or obesity...per se. It's the sheer cost of medical insurance that is the problem. If those costs weren't so distorted, I bet the nannies could really care less if folks smoke. The pol's would be ticked, of course, because then they would lose some of their ability to levy such heavy taxes on cigarettes.
Sorry if this didn't make much sense...still fighting the uckie-poos here, lol.
Yep, and we wonder why the courts are overloaded.
Well, there was a thread where a woman who worked for the Muslims, I believe in Florida. They fired her just for eating a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich. Crazy, eh?
I guess the gnatzis are sleeping in this morning. Too bad, I have some deliciously venomous replies saved up.
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