You smoke? You're fired! at least for one company....
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Headline is linked from WRAL.com - News site
Company Fires All Employees Who Smoke
Michigan Firm Won't Allow Smoking, Even On Employee's Own Time
UPDATED: 8:20 AM EST January 25, 2005
LANSING, Mich. -- Four employees of a health care company have been fired for refusing to take a test to determine whether they smoke cigarettes.
Weyco Inc., a health benefits administrator based in Okemos, Mich., adopted a policy Jan. 1 that allows employees to be fired if they smoke, even if the smoking happens after business hours or at home.
Company founder Howard Weyers has said the anti-smoking rule was designed to shield the firm from high health care costs. "I don't want to pay for the results of smoking," he said.
The rule led one employee to quit before the policy was adopted. Four others were fired when they balked at the smoking test.
Chief Financial Officer Gary Climes estimated that 18 to 20 of the company's 200 employers were smokers when the policy was announced in 2003. Of those, as many as 14 quit smoking before the policy went into effect. The company offered them help to kick the habit.
"That is absolutely a victory," Climes said.
On the company's (linked) Web site, it states:
Weyco Inc. is a non-smoking company that strongly supports its employees in living healthy lifestyles.
Wow!
So, working for this employer, even if you smoke on your own time, outside work, you will not be employed there? Sign me up please! (just kidding, maybe?!)
Seriously, smoking is a serious health issue. I worked in an environment where I was constantly subjected to outrageous amounts of second hand smoke for years. Even when the company that I worked for got stupid and installed a batch of "smoke eaters" I was quietly hoping that they'd wise up and just institute a "no smoking" policy, and not so quietly asked multiple times that our management designate some areas as smoking and some as non-smoking so I wouldn't have clean up behind the filthy lazy smokers that couldn't be bothered to clean up their own ash droppings. I saw nicotene stains on very expensive computer equipment that I was partly responsible for maintaining, and -- as a participant in the company's ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan) plan -- was a "part owner" of.
I've been forever thankful that the Federal Government has banned smoking in it's work places, and that (in one of the few instances I like "progressiveness") states like Maryland have banned smoking in the work place -- including most restaurants and bars (meaning I can go out and eat at a restaurant and actually taste the food, rather than the smoke).
But, what individuals do on their own time -- within reason and legality -- should be their own chosing.
I support an employer's right to decide on whom they wish to have working for them, though some employers may make stupid, racist, biggoted decisions on hiring, or discriminate for other reasons which would make me uncomfortable doing business with them.
But, and it's a big but (as opposed to a big cigarette butt), I think employees have a right to choose to kill themselves slowly via cigarettes if they wish, and they shouldn't lose their jobs over the fact that they smoke outside the work place.
Call me crazy, but I can see very easily where eventually employees that can't stay physically fit will be discriminated against. Where employees that have a genetic disposition towards cancer or other illnesses that might keep them out of work could be discriminated against, etc.
I expect the case of these employees will find it's way into the court system, and it'l be interesting to see how it progresses. But I fear the slippery slope this could put us on.
Company Fires All Employees Who Smoke
Michigan Firm Won't Allow Smoking, Even On Employee's Own Time
UPDATED: 8:20 AM EST January 25, 2005
LANSING, Mich. -- Four employees of a health care company have been fired for refusing to take a test to determine whether they smoke cigarettes.
Weyco Inc., a health benefits administrator based in Okemos, Mich., adopted a policy Jan. 1 that allows employees to be fired if they smoke, even if the smoking happens after business hours or at home.
Company founder Howard Weyers has said the anti-smoking rule was designed to shield the firm from high health care costs. "I don't want to pay for the results of smoking," he said.
The rule led one employee to quit before the policy was adopted. Four others were fired when they balked at the smoking test.
Chief Financial Officer Gary Climes estimated that 18 to 20 of the company's 200 employers were smokers when the policy was announced in 2003. Of those, as many as 14 quit smoking before the policy went into effect. The company offered them help to kick the habit.
"That is absolutely a victory," Climes said.
On the company's (linked) Web site, it states:
Weyco Inc. is a non-smoking company that strongly supports its employees in living healthy lifestyles.
Wow!
So, working for this employer, even if you smoke on your own time, outside work, you will not be employed there? Sign me up please! (just kidding, maybe?!)
Seriously, smoking is a serious health issue. I worked in an environment where I was constantly subjected to outrageous amounts of second hand smoke for years. Even when the company that I worked for got stupid and installed a batch of "smoke eaters" I was quietly hoping that they'd wise up and just institute a "no smoking" policy, and not so quietly asked multiple times that our management designate some areas as smoking and some as non-smoking so I wouldn't have clean up behind the filthy lazy smokers that couldn't be bothered to clean up their own ash droppings. I saw nicotene stains on very expensive computer equipment that I was partly responsible for maintaining, and -- as a participant in the company's ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan) plan -- was a "part owner" of.
I've been forever thankful that the Federal Government has banned smoking in it's work places, and that (in one of the few instances I like "progressiveness") states like Maryland have banned smoking in the work place -- including most restaurants and bars (meaning I can go out and eat at a restaurant and actually taste the food, rather than the smoke).
But, what individuals do on their own time -- within reason and legality -- should be their own chosing.
I support an employer's right to decide on whom they wish to have working for them, though some employers may make stupid, racist, biggoted decisions on hiring, or discriminate for other reasons which would make me uncomfortable doing business with them.
But, and it's a big but (as opposed to a big cigarette butt), I think employees have a right to choose to kill themselves slowly via cigarettes if they wish, and they shouldn't lose their jobs over the fact that they smoke outside the work place.
Call me crazy, but I can see very easily where eventually employees that can't stay physically fit will be discriminated against. Where employees that have a genetic disposition towards cancer or other illnesses that might keep them out of work could be discriminated against, etc.
I expect the case of these employees will find it's way into the court system, and it'l be interesting to see how it progresses. But I fear the slippery slope this could put us on.
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