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.
We have been trying to explain that to folks for years......but since more folks don't smoke than do it generally falls on deaf ears. For that matter the lies against smoking have been told so many times that even many smokers believe them.
Is smoking the best habit in the world to have? Of course not. Is it the worst? Absolutely not.
No, they will recruit homos. Next they will probably fire Catholics because they are more likely to have children. Then they will fire anyone with children. Then overweight people, people who drink coffee, people who ride motorcycles, people who own guns...
But no one will dare to say anything against the homos. Why, just look at, say, Rosie O'Donnel and you will see that she is a sacred cow. They will have to fire a lot of people who have low to moderate health expenses to be able to afford all the people who need expensive AIDS treatments. The 60's counter-culture is now the establishment, and they will impose their values and costs on everyone else until they die out.
Indeed, the study's flaws went much deeper than mathematics, and the CDC knew it. A story in the May issue of Science magazine found that political considerations might have influenced the authors' work. "Some researchers, including a few at the CDC, ... argue that the paper's compatibility with a new anti-obesity theme in government public health pronouncements -- rather than sound analysis -- propelled it to print," Science reported. Tellingly, many researchers refused to be identified for the story. Said one, "I don't want to lose my job." Meanwhile, CDC researchers released two separate studies over the summer critical of the JAMA paper.
The CDC finally took action months later by conducting its own internal investigation, which released its findings two weeks ago. "While there was at least one error in the calculations ... the fundamental scientific problem centers around the limitations in both the data and the methodology," the report found. By this point, there was enough evidence undermining the original paper for the CDC to retract it. Instead, it has run just a single correction in the January issue of JAMA that cited "an error in [the CDC's] computations," while saying nothing of the paper's flawed methodology.
But apparently the CDC doesn't consider methodology to be of much importance. Last week, CCF Director Richard Berman wrote an op-ed in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that was highly critical of the CDC's conduct regarding the flawed report. In response, CDC chief science officer Dixie E. Snider wrote, "[W]e cannot and should not let this discussion of scientific methodology detract from the real issue." This is dangerous reasoning indeed coming from a scientist.
It's clear that over the concerns of its own researchers the CDC shamefully pushed a scientifically flawed study to reach some politically correct end. Since then, it has not given contrary evidence publicity equal to the original report. Nothing less than a full retraction of the original study and an apology to the American people can amend these egregious mistakes.
I've had numerous similar experiences. I used to be polite about it and acquiesce. I stopped doing that about 3 years ago.
I love doing that in the non smoking places. After I finish a meal open up a pack of smokes (and watch peoples eyes bug out of their heads lol) then put one unlit in my mouth and watch people give me the "look". THEN I get up go outside and smoke.
I also get a good laugh when I see the nutcases start the fake cough routine as my lighter moves ever closer to my cigarette when I am outside BEFORE its lit.. lol
One time I had this lady in Vegas sit down next to me at a poker machine. Now.. mind you I was PLAYING and SMOKING THERE already.. she sits down and demands that I stop smoking. I totally ignored her while she waved her hands furiously and made a scene. She calls over security and they tell her "Lady, it's Vegas and he is allowed to smoke, if you dont like it.. I suggest you move away" :)
Ok now what's next? People that eat fast foods or how about people that don't wear seatbelts or folks that don't get an annual physical and prostate/colonoscopy or breast exams or maybe it'll be folks that believe in the 2nd amendment and own guns. This company needs to get a life of its own and stay out of their employee's lives.
Remember when the cigarette shills would stand outside the college dorms and on street corners handing out ciggies? We need more of that with emphasis on middle schools and high schools! (Sarcasm Alert)
But what if St. Pat's day falls on a Thursday? ;)
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.
I have smoked for thirty years, been with my present employer for 12, and have never missed a day of work.
While these statistics may be true - let us think about who would be suffering if smokers did not create these medical costs: The Doctors, Drug Companies and Health Insurance Companies. This is conspiracy at it's best.
Does anybody REALLY think these above mentioned groups WANT people to get well? Where would the premiums come from, the paychecks, and the payments to stockholders? Think about it.
First, Tobacco is a legal substance, and is still grown in America by hard working Farmers. Yes - it does cause alot of health problems, which, until a few years ago, were dismissed by the producers of the products, and even argued about among physicians. Now, we know the truth.
But how will the doctors, drug companies and Health Insurance companies be paid if everyone stops smoking?
Want to think about what is REALLY making AMERICANS SICK? Lets look at the Food industry. It is an available fact to discover (just read the labels, get on-line and do your homework) how many chemicals which cause cancer are pumped into the food in this country. It starts with the growing and raising process, and continues through the packaging and canning by the adding of yet more chemiclas to increase shelf life.
If companies are going to test their new hires for Tobacco - they had better start testing them for chemical content as well. The average American Diet of Fast Food, additives, preservitives, chemicals, anit-biotics, and growth Hormones does AS MUCH HARM, if not MORE THAN the Tobacco. And, statistically speaking - the smokers are few nowadays - but DOESN'T EVERYBODY STILL EAT?
I cannot believe I am about to say this - but this is one of the causes the ACLU should probably get involved with, as what a person does in his or her home, property, on his or her own time - IS NO BODY ELSES BUSINESS. If they are comitting a crime - that is one thing - but until they make Tobacco illegal, seems to me this falls under our Freedoms as Americans. Are they going to begin telling us what food to eat? What chemicals to stay away from? Doubt it.
Using the stats given above is nothing more than attempting schock value - when more people die from cancer and heart attacks, lose more time at work, are more stressed, and have sicker children and personal illness DUE MORESO BY THE CHEMICAL CONTENT OF THEIR BODIES AND LACK OF NUTRITION THAN FROM SMOKING CIGARETTES.
Perhaps these companies should do some studies on those facts, and see where their policies fall.
Time to Educate the powers that be, and then let them make decisions once they have ALL the facts - not just bits and pieces. JK
Of course there will never be any such outcry over the fact they have all done the EXACT same thing about the second hand smoke hokum.............
Noting that they were upwind of me and about 20 ft. away, I asked then (rather sarcasticly) to please wait until I had lit my cigarette before they started hacking and coughing. They moved on...
We've lived in Virginia now for 2 years, but had been frequenting this are for 3 prior to that.......not once had I encountered that problem here, until this winter - the offended offenders were invited to sit in the non-smoking part of the restaurant, stop complaining, or leave. They left - and got into a car with Delaware tags!!!!
In the name of lower premiums auto insurance companies have called for seat belts, helmets, air bags, car alarms, lowered speed limits, front-drive cars, and on and on. Yet did premiums decline when these goals were met? Premiums actually grew as cars became more expensive and 3/4 of the value of the vehicle was moved under the hood which usually sustains the greatest damage in an accident. Like the circus motorcycle rider riding inside a gigantic barrel, insurance only serves to speed up the process which hopefully ends with the rider getting out of the barrel in one piece. And like auto insurance, we are quickly moving to a day when medical insurance will be required by law. More premiums, more insane legislation that eventually increases premiums. Trial lawyers are also a significant piece of this puzzle but that's another story.
Muleteam1
Careful, there. Brand cigarette smokers as addicts, and the next thing you know, smokers will be disqualified from owning firearms. Don't go there.
Apparently to some the habit of making a legal personal choice is the worst habit.
LOL!!!!!!!!!!
I have no problem with places that are non-smoking by the owners choice, my problem is when the government forces those that choose otherwise to do so.
Before the nannies forced all businesses in Delaware to be non-smoking, the government building all were. At the time I had a small office building in downtown Dover right between the court house and the AGs office, but it wasn't a state building. However it was forever being confused with the AGs office by people coming out of the courthouse.
One day a woman mistakenly came into my ofice looking for the AG and before I could explain she was in the wrong building, she started ranting about my smoking - no amount of explanation that I wasn't a state building would appease her.........she actually went and got a Capitol Police officer to come with her and she demanded I be ticketted for smoking in a public building. He was finally able to convince her she was wrong when he asked me if I wanted her arrested for trespassing. LOL
No.
The main goal is exercizing power over others, with the sanction of law. And it is all based on fraud. Any elevation of "health" is purely coincidental. As for mental health, it simply validates the insane and the neurotic.
Since the imposition of the huge tax increases on smokers under the name of "Punish Big Tobacco", the honey pot of money is both huge and irresistible.
Equal protection? What's that?
The claim of 400,000 was found, by a federal appelate court, to be fraudulent, arbitrary and invalid.
But, like every other big lie, once it is disseminated, the morons can continue claiming it as fact.
You too?
Mine looks exactly like a filter cigarette, but it's a pen. In public, I sign all my checks with it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.