Posted on 01/14/2006 8:38:38 AM PST by 88keys
Scotts Miracle-Gro plan to fire smokers
COLUMBUS, Ohio - Beginning next October, smoking will be significantly more expensive for employees of Scotts Miracle-Gro Co.
Lighting up, even at home, will cost them their jobs.
Many other companies also are focusing on smokers, whether by raising their health-insurance premiums or not hiring them.
Scotts took dramatic action because it wants to hold down health-insurance costs by "helping people live healthy lifestyles," said James Hagedorn, chairman and chief executive.
The Marysville company pays for medical claims using its own funds, "so why would we admit someone into this environment when they're passing risk along to everyone else?" he asked.
"Our view is we shouldn't and we won't."
With operations across the country, Scotts can fire smokers legally in 21 states, including Ohio, company officials said.
Scotts appears to be one of only a few companies that will fire employees if they light up.
The Society for Human Resource Management found in a 2004 survey that 4.4 percent of those polled preferred to not hire smokers. Less than 1 percent of the 270 professionals surveyed said their companies have a formal policy against hiring smokers.
Weyco Inc., a Michigan company, began firing smokers earlier this year and received widespread attention.
Scotts has given employees a year - and free counseling, nicotine patches and cessation classes - to quit smoking. The company has not determined how it will verify compliance with the new policy, said Jim King, a spokesman.
The president and chief operating officer of the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, Lynn J. Beasley, sits on Scotts' board of directors. Beasley, whose term on the board expires in January, declined comment.
The no-smoking mandate is part of a broader effort at Scotts to control health-care costs. The company also opened a $5 million fitness and medical facility for employees.
Some smokers, already frustrated by bans in the workplace, restaurants and bars, are saying enough is enough.
"It's discrimination," said Terry Rieser, of Pickerington, taking a frigid smoke break outside a state office building Downtown this week. "Look at what people are putting into their bodies by way of their diet. I know people who didn't smoke who keeled over with heart attacks. You can't tie all the death rates to smoking."
Others are more philosophical.
"I can understand their situation, coming at it as a business," said a co-worker of Rieser's, who wouldn't give her name. "It does bring a higher risk of some conditions. I guess it comes down to your choice. If you want to keep smoking, you'll pay higher rates." Lewis Maltby, president of the National Workrights Institute, spoke out against Weyco's policy and said this week that he also disagrees with the new Scotts policy. His New Jersey not-for-profit organization is focused on expanding human rights in the workplace.
"What you do in your own home on your own time is none of your boss' business," Maltby said.
People who smoke do incur higher medical costs, Maltby said, but employers can protect themselves in other ways, such as charging smokers more to participate in company-sponsored medical plans.
An increasing number of companies are doing that.
In central Ohio, Cardinal Health, Children's Hospital, Gannett, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Longaberger Company are among those charging higher health-insurance premiums to smokers.
Chase, one of the region's largest employers with 13,700 workers, also charges smokers higher rates for supplemental life and long-term disability insurance.
To avoid the higher charges, an employee must not have smoked any cigarettes, cigars or pipes in the 12 months prior to Jan. 1 or must complete an approved stop-smoking class, spokesman Jeff Lyttle said.
The extra charge applies even if the employee doesn't smoke but a dependent covered under the employee's health insurance does.
Bank One charged smokers more before it was acquired by Chase in July 2004. The policy was implemented companywide this year.
"It really speaks to how big the issue of rising health insurance has become," Lyttle said.
Cardinal Health began discounting its health premiums for nonsmoking employees up to 15 percent in July 2002.
"People with less-healthy habits have higher absence rates, they're out of the office more and have higher health-care costs," spokesman Jim Mazzola said.
Publisher Gannett Co., which owns The Advocate in Newark, the Chillicothe Gazette and the Lancaster Eagle-Gazette, will begin charging smokers $50 extra per month in 2006.
But the company is giving smokers an out: The fee can be waived if the employee completes a stop-smoking class, which Gannett pays for, spokeswoman Tara Connell said.
As for how an employer will know if the worker is a smoker or not, most companies say it's an honor system.
"We're not in the business of policing our employees, but we expect them to be honest with us," Connell said. "If they're not, they're subject to discipline up to and including termination." William Hayes, president of the Health Policy Institute of Ohio, said employers are clamping down on smokers because unhealthy workers cost them more.
The institute, located in Columbus, is an independent, nonpartisan, health-care research group.
The National Business Group on Health estimates that each smoker costs employers $3,856 a year in added health-care costs and lost productivity.
Some wonder whether employers will take aim at other health factors, like obesity.
"The question becomes how much more exacting will companies become on out-of-workplace behavior in an effort to lower their total health premium," Hayes said.
Gregg Lehman, chief executive of Gordian Health Solutions, a Tennessee company that administers wellness programs for employers, said his firm advises clients to use a carrot, rather than a stick, in dealing with smokers.
That includes creating voluntary programs that address unhealthy habits and discounting premiums for people who participate.
The stick approach creates an adversarial environment in the workplace, Lehman said.
"People that smoke, that tends to be a habit that developed over a number of years," he said. "The person didn't get into it overnight, and you're not going to fix it overnight either."
Copyright © The Billings Gazette, a division of Lee Enterprises.
They're paying for the health insurance. Smoking is bad for your health.
While producing a chemical cocktail designed to be sprayed wildly all over your lawn and garden.
/sarcasm
Wonder if Miracle Gro will fail to hire gay men, given their proven history of health risks.
I hope any decent worker avoids Scotts like the plague. And I hope smokers everywhere, and those concerned that overbearing health nazis will some day come for them, will tell Scotts to stick their fertilizer back where it came from.
Will they be firing the gays too? Isn't buggery bad for your health?
They will no longer get a dime from me. I don't smoke, but the smoke nazis turn my stomach.
Excellent point.
That isn't the topic of this article. Someone who smokes should pay higher premiums since they're incurring more healthcare costs. Smoking is bad for the health and if Scotts wants to do this, they can. It's their health insurance.
If Scott's is telling people how to live on their own time, they should be paying them 24/7. Do they have the same policy towards other behavior outside the workpace that would impact on the employyee's health?. I think not!
Shall we fire the obese, homosexual men, women who have relations with bisexual men, alcoholics, motorcycle riders, skydivers, and sushi eaters too?
Not on FR....here anytime, anyone takes any action against "smokers"...well you'll see soon.
Just a thought, if smokers are bumping the medical costs; then payroll may be positively impacted by screening smokers. Or, Scotts starts paying more to their employees (better benefits, vacation, holiday, bonus, ect.)
Most consumers, myself included, buy consumables based upon price. When I buy fertilizer, I buy the bag that has what I need (weed and feed, for example) and at a price that I consider reasonable. Sometimes Scotts wins, sometimes it doesn't. If enough people get upset, and boycott Scotts; then something will change.
From the capitalistic point of view; I see Scott's point. The goal is to reduce OPEX, they can either layoff excess headcount, or reduce costs associated with their headcount. Bear in mind, this rule works for everyone. You can't have a Exec. VP made exempt. If the Exec VP can quit, so can the janitor. It's a question of 'how badly do you want to work for Scotts?'
So is homosexual sex! Are they going to tell the homosexuals that they cannot have sex?
I don't know if people should be fired but higher premiums for more risky behaviour? Sure. There is NOTHING good for you about smoking. If I was in charge of Scotts, I would not fire people but smokers would have to pay more. You pay to play.
Muleteam1
I'm a smoker, and I agree with you to an extent. If the health insurance cost was their only concern, then great. But that could be fixed by raising the personal cost of the insurance for the smoker, forcing them to pay the difference between what it would cost the company to cover them if they were non-smokers and what is actually paid. Or by raising the smokers co-pay.
Scotts said they want their employees to have a healthier lifestyle. How is that their business? Are they also going to fire gays, how about employees that were previously convicted of drunk driving, or those who give birth to children with luekemia, etc...
Health care costs is not their concern, they are smoking Nazis (NO SMOKE FOR YOU!!). I see this going to alot of courts in the near future, for wrongful termination.
I take it that you have never heard of random 'Drug Screening'? You may not smoke Marijuana on the job; but if you do at a party or at home; your job will be in jeopardy.
You have a point.
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