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Smokers now face another risk from their habit: it could cost them a shot at a job.
Steve Hebert for The New York Times
More hospitals and medical businesses in many states are adopting strict policies that make smoking a reason to turn away job applicants, saying they want to increase worker productivity, reduce health care costs and encourage healthier living.
The policies reflect a frustration that softer efforts — like banning smoking on company grounds, offering cessation programs and increasing health care premiums for smokers — have not been powerful-enough incentives to quit.
The new rules essentially treat cigarettes like an illegal narcotic. Applications now explicitly warn of “tobacco-free hiring,” job seekers must submit to urine tests for nicotine and new employees caught smoking face termination.
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Tobacco products are legal - if companies are given permission to hire only non-smokers based on health issues, won't they be emboldened to eventually hire only thin people, only vegetarians, only non-drinkers, only men (because women get pregnant) only those under 35 (because older workers tend to get sick more often) and so on and so on?
Discrimination is discrimination no matter what it's based upon.
Wouldn't it be nice if they went after the Illegal Aliens the way they go after the smokers (smoking is legal) if they did we wouldn't have to be paying for all the Free ***** the Aliens are getting.
Illegal Aliens are bad for your health and your food money.
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Harry Boy (Genius)
In The Absence Of Law And Order Society Will Surely Destroy Itself
I guess the opposing view would be whether or not you have a right to work somewhere to begin with. That, or whether or not a company should be forced to hire someone that costs it money. If for example, say a health insurance provider says a family plan for a smoker is 40% more than that of a non-smoker. Would an employer have a leg to stand on with respect to their ban? I'm merely presenting the alternative view point. I do think it's a slippery slope, but I also think that employers (generally speaking) should be able to hire and fire whomever they want, since it's their money, and their company.
In issues like these I like to ask the question of "rights according to whom?". Regardless of where you may fall on the question of not hiring smokers, someone's "rights" will be put into question. Be they the rights of the smoker, or the rights of those who would, or would not hire them.
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"The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him." Leo Tolstoy, 1897
That, or whether or not a company should be forced to hire someone that costs it money. If for example, say a health insurance provider says a family plan for a smoker is 40% more than that of a non-smoker. Would an employer have a leg to stand on with respect to their ban? I'm merely presenting the alternative view point. I do think it's a slippery slope, but I also think that employers (generally speaking) should be able to hire and fire whomever they want, since it's their money, and their company.
That might be a valid issue but for the fact that many companies (especially those in health related fields) receive federal benefits of some sort - and I was under the impression that if you violated federal laws (such as having discrimanatory hiring practices) you would lose your federal funding. (I could be wrong on this, though, so if anyone knows differently, please correct me.)
Also, aren't employers prohibited from finding out a person's health history before hiring them? Doesn't being "an equal opportunity employer" mean that they agree to hire people without basing their choice on anything other than that person's appitude for doing the job? If they can check health status (ie: smoking) they can also check for diabetes, heart disease, alcohol consumption, obesity, etc. and then rescind a job offer due to any of those things.
Speaking strictly from a health/cost perspective, a smoker is not going to cost any more than a diabetic would. They've both got the same potential to be costly - yet neither can be confirmed ahead of time. Some smokers get sick, some do not. Some diabetics become sicker, some do not. Ditto virtually all other diseases and potential diseases.
Doesn't bother me a bit - surprise, surprise. Discrimination should be only for things you're born with - race, gender, whatever, not a choice to smoke. How about a guy who never ever takes a shower, wears the same clothes every day for a week and runs two miles at lunch. Is a hospital, or other employer, obligated to hire, or not fire, him because it would discriminate against dirty, smelly, disgusting people ?
Tobacco products are legal - if companies are given permission to hire only non-smokers based on health issues, won't they be emboldened to eventually hire only thin people, only vegetarians, only non-drinkers, only men (because women get pregnant) only those under 35 (because older workers tend to get sick more often) and so on and so on?
Discrimination is discrimination no matter what it's based upon.
Not necessarily true, but it's all shades of grey when considering one's identity versus actions, imo.
Is it discrimination to refuse to hire violent felons, for example? (A company I own has an office that is entirely women -- I can assure you there is no way we would hire an ex-con who was convicted of rape to work there. Is that discrimination, too?)
Hospitals Shift Smoking Bans to Smoker Ban
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