"Tobacco-Free Hiring?"

[kenny]

Many companies give drug tests to applicants.
A positive result for a list of illegal substances means no job offer.

Now companies are adding tobacco to that list of substances.
Tobacco, BTW, is legal.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/11/us/11smoking.html?_r=1

I'm torn.
On one hand I actually sort of wish tobacco was made illegal, but I also support people's freedom to make, what I see as, bad choices.
What's next? BMI and cholesterol screening?
20% of Americans smoke, shall we just pay them unemployment forever?
I mean if we are going to do this to people let's just make tobacco illegal and get it over with.

Discrimination for legal behavior is creepy.

Do you think employers denying employment to smokers is a good or bad thing?

 

[ForteKitty]

I wish people would just make better choices. Smoking increases risks for all sorts of things, and it increases insurance premiums. As a company, i wouldn't want to pay for that. As an emplyee, i wouldn't want to pay more for someone else's bad habits. As a tax payer, i wouldn't want to pay for their unemployment if they are denied jobs based on that. Either way, I lose!

What i would love to see is smokers paying a higher ins. premium.

 

[rockzilla]

Many companies give drug tests to applicants.
A positive result for a list of illegal substances means no job offer.

Now companies are adding tobacco to that list of substances.
Tobacco, BTW, is legal.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/11/us/11smoking.html?_r=1

I'm torn.
On one hand I actually sort of wish tobacco was made illegal, but I also support people's freedom to make, what I see as, bad choices.
What's next? BMI and cholesterol screening?
20% of Americans smoke, shall we just pay them unemployment forever?
I mean if we are going to do this to people let's just make tobacco illegal and get it over with.

Discrimination for legal behavior is creepy.

Do you think employers denying employment to smokers is a good or bad thing?

It seems, from the article, that most of the companies doing this are hospitals and other medical facilities. If smoking was purely a private activity (e.g. was not done at all during working hours) and had no impact inside the hospital (e.g. smoke particles and smell on clothing of nurses) I would see more of an argument against the ban. However, I have known very few smokers who have been able to get through an entire 8-hour shift without a smoking break. This definitely decreases productivity. Then, when they come back inside, they smell things up to high heavens*.

I remember in high school, getting my makeup done at a fancy salon for prom. I had saved up probably $100 for my hair and makeup (a LOT for a high-schooler to save back then) and the stylist smelled awful. It was so obvious that she was a smoker and clearly, since I remember it ~10 years later, left a really bad impression. There is also a lady in our building who goes outside to smoke, however I can always tell when she's done this because our entire hallway has that stinky smoke smell afterwards. While this may be merely unpleasant for me, I can imagine it would definitely have negative health consequences for say, patients in a hospital who have a nurse that smokes tending to them. Not to mention, it is entirely opposite to the mission of healthcare.

*Often smokers are defensive about this, saying "Well, I shower after I smoke" or "I use mouthwash/brush my teeth/etc." Sorry, you smell. Doesn't matter what you do or how much denial you are in, if you are a smoker, then you stink, and the only way to stop being stinky is to quit.

 

[mrscushion]

I think it's a bad thing. I think if the hiring company is concerned about productivity, it has the right to institute a "no-smoke-break" policy, but in my opinion nicotine tests open the door for other discrimination of legal behaviors and attributes of job applicants.

 

[Tuckins1]

Regardless of a person's views on smoking, it is still LEGAL. Therefore, it should be ILLEGAL for employers to discriminate based on the fact that someone smokes. Period.

 

[kenny]

I don't like smelling anyone else's stink either, smoke or other odors, perfume, etc.
But denying employment strikes me as another example of the insidious creep of intolerance for diversity.

Some people stink.
It is unfortunate.
Sometimes you can do something about it, but other times it is just another thing to accept and tolerate in others.

 

[NovemberBride]

Companies discriminate for all kinds of legal reasons. You can discriminate in hiring on any basis you want, so long as it is not a protected class (race, religion, sex, etc.) Many companies, especially smaller ones, are sinking under the weight of health insurance premiums. I choose not to smoke because I know the risks. Frankly, I would be happy for my company to choose not to hire smokers if it means my health insurance premium would be lowered or would not rise. Why should the other employees bear the cost of your decision to ignore the irrefutable truth that smoking is hazardous to your health? Another option is that at my husband's company, you pay a higher employee contribution to your health insurance if you are a smoker. I fully support this as well.

 

[Pandora II]

“We felt it was unfair for employees who maintained healthy lifestyles to have to subsidize those who do not,” Steven C. Bjelich, chief executive of St. Francis Medical Center in Cape Girardeau, Mo., which stopped hiring smokers last month. “Essentially that’s what happens.”

So... what about fat people or those who don't exercise or who eat the odd burger and drink the odd beer?

 

[kenny]

Companies discriminate for all kinds of legal reasons. You can discriminate in hiring on any basis you want, so long as it is not a protected class (race, religion, sex, etc.) Many companies, especially smaller ones, are sinking under the weight of health insurance premiums. I choose not to smoke because I know the risks. Frankly, I would be happy for my company to choose not to hire smokers if it means my health insurance premium would be lowered or would not rise. Why should the other employees bear the cost of your decision to ignore the irrefutable truth that smoking is hazardous to your health? Another option is that at my husband's company, you pay a higher employee contribution to your health insurance if you are a smoker. I fully support this as well.

Excluding certain other groups may also help lower your insurance premiums, like fertile women of an age more likely to get pregnant, applicants who DNA-test positive for increased genetic risk of a huge list of illnesses.

Gay men might get AIDS so let's not hire them.
Oh, but wait, they are less likely to have children so let's give hiring preference to gay men.
Catholic latinos have more children, which drives up insurance costs.

There is a huge list of groups you could exclude to lower YOUR insurance premiums, but isn't that kind of selfish?
I do however support higher premiums for smokers since smoking is more of a choice than genetic.
I'd also love to see the tobacco companies required to somehow pick up the bill for this higher premium.

Using employment opportunities as social engineering is creepy and a very slippery slope.

 

[that_someone_special]

“We felt it was unfair for employees who maintained healthy lifestyles to have to subsidize those who do not,” Steven C. Bjelich, chief executive of St. Francis Medical Center in Cape Girardeau, Mo., which stopped hiring smokers last month. “Essentially that’s what happens.”

So... what about fat people or those who don't exercise or who eat the odd burger and drink the odd beer?

Politely, my eating of a burger and beer don't affect YOUR lungs...

 

[JewelFreak]

What i would love to see is smokers paying a higher ins. premium.

Smokers DO pay about a 20% higher premium -- more depending on age.

Here's the risk in this sort of thing: Smoking is bad for you. Therefore if you do it, so what if it's legal, we won't hire you.

Weighing too much is legal but unhealthy. Have you heard the demands that overweight people pay higher insurance costs? That's been going on for several years. Who decides what's overweight for whom? My grandmother was never slim; she was what I'd call "sturdy" all her life, but would be judged too heavy by today's charts. She lived to 103, healthy all the way. So again, who decides? Can a company refuse to hire someone with her build (not talking Hooters or airlines, folks).

Do drinkers pay more? That's bad for you too if you do too much of it.

Next it might be those who eat too much cholesteral; then people who get speeding tickets -- after all, that's risky behavior; people who skydive or ride motorcycles or climb trees. Pretty soon we'll all be paying more & nobody will have a job.

I'm darned tired of all this stuff. Let people make their own choices and live (or not) with the consequences. Ban smoking in the workplace if you like but jeeze, I'm sick of Big Papa Gov't or any company telling me what I am allowed to do on my own time in my own house (or back yard).

--- Laurie

 

[megumic]

Regardless of a person's views on smoking, it is still LEGAL. Therefore, it should be ILLEGAL for employers to discriminate based on the fact that someone smokes. Period.

My guess is the job candidates give consentto the testing. I think it's a good thing. Smokers get sick far more often than non-smokers, and thus require more medical attention, making insurance more expensive. Smokers also take several more breaks on a daily basis. This is counter-productive to "working" and I don't think employers should be required to hire employees who have the distraction of smoking.

To me, it doesn't matter that cigarettes are legal. It matters to me that smoking is an addiction, not merely a choice. Thus, smoking employees* have something they need to take care of at some point during the workday, presenting interruptions and unproductivity.

*I'm talking about those who smoke once during regular intervals throughout the day, not social smokers.

 

[Tacori E-ring]

Smoking causes 1,000 deaths in the US a day. 8.6 million people in the US have at least one serious illness from smoking. So, yeah, tobacco products are not a great choice. I feel torn because as much as I hate smoking, it doesn't seem right to not hire someone, or to fire someone, for what they choose to do on their own time. Smoking is not likely to cause poor work performance like other addictions (ex. drinking or other drugs) unless the person is going through w/drawl. I totally support the smoke free work places, but the smoker free...not sure how I feel about that.

 

[NovemberBride]

Companies discriminate for all kinds of legal reasons. You can discriminate in hiring on any basis you want, so long as it is not a protected class (race, religion, sex, etc.) Many companies, especially smaller ones, are sinking under the weight of health insurance premiums. I choose not to smoke because I know the risks. Frankly, I would be happy for my company to choose not to hire smokers if it means my health insurance premium would be lowered or would not rise. Why should the other employees bear the cost of your decision to ignore the irrefutable truth that smoking is hazardous to your health? Another option is that at my husband's company, you pay a higher employee contribution to your health insurance if you are a smoker. I fully support this as well.

Excluding certain other groups may also help lower your insurance premiums, like fertile women of an age more likely to get pregnant, applicants who DNA-test positive for increased genetic risk of a huge list of illnesses.

Gay men might get AIDS so let's not hire them.
Oh, but wait, they are less likely to have children so let's give hiring preference to gay men.
Catholic latinos have more children, which drives up insurance costs.

There is a huge list of groups you could exclude to lower YOUR insurance premiums, but isn't that kind of selfish?
I do however support higher premiums for smokers since smoking is more of a choice than genetic.
I'd also love to see the tobacco companies required to somehow pick up the bill for this higher premium.

Using employment opportunities as social engineering is creepy and a very slippery slope.

Kenny,

I completely agree with you. I should have clarified that smoking is really the only issue where I would agree with refusing to hire someone. To me, smoking is a vice with no positive benefits. Completely different than someone's religious choice or sexual preference. I would never advocate discriminating on those grounds.

 

[suchende]

If I started my own company tomorrow, I'd want to be able to discriminate against smokers. I'd probably give a hiring preference to alums from my undergrad too. I, personally, feel that the government telling me who I can and can't refuse to hire aside from protected classes is "big brother-ish."

 

[Octavia]

I read the article a couple days ago, and I was just waiting for someone to post about it here . I'm also kind of torn about it. I would TOTALLY support a ban on smoking during the workday -- basically, if you smell like smoke, you have to wash and change clothes before being allowed to interact with co-workers/customers/patients/etc. Especially in healthcare facilities. But I'm not a fan of an outright ban, although I can't really articulate why. I know there are tons of benefits to smoking cessation (or just not starting in the first place), but it just doesn't sit well with me. And I think that if people were prohibited from wearing any clothes that have come into contact with tobacco products while working, it would naturally force them to cut down or quit, without quite as much backlash. Maybe I'm naive, haha.

 

[suchende]

For what it's worth, obese people aren't a protected class either, and there are certainly reasons why employers might want to avoid hiring them.

 

[hawaiianorangetree]

Regardless of a person's views on smoking, it is still LEGAL. Therefore, it should be ILLEGAL for employers to discriminate based on the fact that someone smokes. Period.

Back in the 80's my parents who were market gardeners, refused to hire anyone that smoked. Not only for productive reasons (constant breaks to have a smoke) but because the nicotine residue that was left on the smokers hands would give the tomato plants a disease and the fruit would have spots on them, making them unsellable in the market.

I think when people make personal life choices that has a negative impact on an employers business in any way the employer should have the right not to hire someone based on those reasons.

If I'm sick in hospital, the last thing I want to smell is someones nicotine stained hands and stinky clothes. I think it is a positive move in the right direction.

Our state childrens hospital cut out all lollies and fried foods (anything unhealthy really) out of the cafeteria and gift shops to help promote healthy life choices, the hospital is also a smoke free zone. I would see only employing non smokers as an extension of this. Thinking about it, I HATE walking on the side walk next to the hospital side entry where all the staff have their smoke breaks in their scrubs.. It looks so wrong!

 

[Pandora II]

Guess I'm just happy to live in a more liberal country...

 

[ForteKitty]

What people do with their body is their own business. They can die for all i care, as it's their choice. I just dont want to smell it or pay for it.

 

[monarch64]

It's baloney/bologna!!!! My body=my business.

 

[Pandora II]

“We felt it was unfair for employees who maintained healthy lifestyles to have to subsidize those who do not,” Steven C. Bjelich, chief executive of St. Francis Medical Center in Cape Girardeau, Mo., which stopped hiring smokers last month. “Essentially that’s what happens.”

So... what about fat people or those who don't exercise or who eat the odd burger and drink the odd beer?

Politely, my eating of a burger and beer don't affect YOUR lungs...

Ah, well in that case it should be fine to discriminate against anyone who drives to work as the pollution from their car is likely to have a bigger effect on my lungs than passive smoking will - especially since now people have to smoke outdoors. At which point, shouldn't those who choose to cycle to work have to pay higher insurance premiums - after all, they are choosing to expose themselves to all of that traffic pollution?

 

[Tuckins1]

“We felt it was unfair for employees who maintained healthy lifestyles to have to subsidize those who do not,” Steven C. Bjelich, chief executive of St. Francis Medical Center in Cape Girardeau, Mo., which stopped hiring smokers last month. “Essentially that’s what happens.”

So... what about fat people or those who don't exercise or who eat the odd burger and drink the odd beer?

Politely, my eating of a burger and beer don't affect YOUR lungs...

True. However, just because someone tests positive for nicotine doesn't mean that they will be smoking on the job, or will even stink like smoke. (I am not a smoker, and am against smoking... I just feel like this is an unfair prejudice.) Some people chew tobacco. Perhaps they only chew one piece when they get home form work. Or perhaps, they smoke one cigarette after dinner.... There is no way to know if a positive nicotine test will have ANY impact on the job or others around that individual.

 

[Circe]

There is an endless laundry list of disapproval-worthy behavior out there, from smoking to drinking to eating fatty foods, to wearing perfume, eating lutefisk, or wearing polyester. Some of them might affect insurance premiums: some are just offensive.

Hey, you know what else can affect insurance premiums? Having diabetes. Or cancer. Chronic illness, of many stripes. Companies should totally be able to discriminate against those people.

The offensive stuff? Man, don't even get me started on the bad habits I'd love not having to witness: my first choice would be the people who say "like" too frequently. I vote we ban them from the workplace on the grounds that they're corrupting the English language, and hurting my ears.

This is blatantly illegal. It's only going to last as long as it takes for them to discriminate against the one smoker with the means to press suit, or, frankly, for some smart litigator to put together a class-action suit. I'm frankly a little terrified that so many people think it's worth getting rid of a minor irritant to suffer the erosion of our civil liberties.

Oh, wait - what am I saying? This is America. That's been our go-to default for the last decade ....

 

[House Cat]

People are speaking of cigarette smoking and its addiction as if it is a choice for most. Addiction isn't a choice. Research shows that addiction has to do with brain chemistry and enlarged areas of the brain that cause a person to be addicted. Ask any addict if they WANT to be using, the answer is almost always (probably about 95% of the time) "NO."

Just because cigarettes are legal, doesn't mean it is a "choice" to be using. These people are addicted and strongly addicted at that. If it were as easy to wake up in the morning and think "I'm going to quit smoking today." and then quit, most every smoker would. I've seen the people smoking through their tracheotomies. I've heard the stories of people continuing to smoke when they're receiving chemo for lung cancer "because they can't get cancer while they're having chemo." Highly addictive.


The hallmark of addiction, in my mind, is when a person continues to use, regardless of the consequences to their health and most likely knowing that the substance will kill them. Cigarettes fit this bill perfectly.


Lastly, while I do feel it is wrong for an employer to try control people with legal substances, I can the employer's point of view. When I worked, I was in management. My smoking employees were a drain on productivity. There were (commonly) two types of smoking employess; they type who took shorter breaks, but a lot of them. In their mind, they thought they were taking the alotted amount of time, but actually, no, if you're going out every hour for five minutes, that does not equal 20 minutes of time. And then there are those who stay out way past the 10 minute mark to smoke two or three cigarettes in one break. I'm sure there are probably responsible smokers out there who value company time, but as I said, commonly, this was an issue I would have to deal with in many departments in a few different companies.

I'm sure somewhere, productivity studies have been done, quantifying sick time, break time, etc with smokers vs. non smokers, and employers just don't want to spend the "extra" money on the employees that smoke. It's wasted money in their eyes. So maybe it isn't a matter of controlling people, it is more a matter of productivity and cost for the company.

 

[iheartscience]

There is an endless laundry list of disapproval-worthy behavior out there, from smoking to drinking to eating fatty foods, to wearing perfume, eating lutefisk, or wearing polyester. Some of them might affect insurance premiums: some are just offensive.

Hey, you know what else can affect insurance premiums? Having diabetes. Or cancer. Chronic illness, of many stripes. Companies should totally be able to discriminate against those people.

The offensive stuff? Man, don't even get me started on the bad habits I'd love not having to witness: my first choice would be the people who say "like" too frequently. I vote we ban them from the workplace on the grounds that they're corrupting the English language, and hurting my ears.

This is blatantly illegal. It's only going to last as long as it takes for them to discriminate against the one smoker with the means to press suit, or, frankly, for some smart litigator to put together a class-action suit. I'm frankly a little terrified that so many people think it's worth getting rid of a minor irritant to suffer the erosion of our civil liberties.

Oh, wait - what am I saying? This is America. That's been our go-to default for the last decade ....

Ditto the bolded. It's funny, though-smoking bans get people more worried about Big Government than the Patriot Act does.

As long as smoking is legal, I don't see how this policy can be legal.

 

[zoebartlett]

Regardless of a person's views on smoking, it is still LEGAL. Therefore, it should be ILLEGAL for employers to discriminate based on the fact that someone smokes. Period.

I don't like the smell of cigarette smoke at all and it's unpleasant to be around it. I do agree with this though (and Mscushion's post as well).

 

[Ara Ann]

Just responding to the 'legality' issue with this thought... Drinking alcohol is also legal, yet many companies forbid use of alcohol during a work day....it is somewhat acceptable at business lunches, etc., but most places I know of frown on drinking during a work day, or have rules against drinking....and if someone tested positive for alcohol on a drug test, I bet they wouldn't be hired.

I think it should be up to the company to decide what their rules are for their employees. They know their own industries and if smoking employees and the resulting odor is not compatible, with their clientele or the kind of work environment they want to provide for their other employees, then they should have a say in that.

I think smoking by medical personnel is offensive. I used to work in a senior citizen apartment complex, in the main office. I was told I could NOT wear any perfume, as it may irritate some of our clients, YET, the nursing staff, who worked directly with the clients, routinely smoked outside and came in smelling like they had just been at the bar. So how is that not offensive to their clients?! How is that a positive reflection on the company and its services? Never could figure that out.

 

[Aoife]

I don't like smoking. As far as I'm concerned it's a smelly, unhealthy habit. I don't like sitting next to someone who is a smoker, because the smell on their clothing tends to transfer to my clothing, and then I have to go home and change my clothes.

I understand why a company would prefer not to pay the potentially increased costs associated with a smoker's health issues. Tobacco is one of the relatively few activities where there is a clear and direct correlation between using tobacco and cancer, heart disease, etc. I think it is perfectly reasonable for a company to restrict smoking breaks, provide incentives for quitting, require smokers to pay higher health insurance premiums, and so on.

However.

The jump from that to not hiring someone because of a legal activity they do on their own time is very big, and is the beginning of a very slippery slope. What other "unhealthy" or "expensive" things could be restricted?

Having more than one child? Heck, having any children. Well child visits are frequent and expensive in the first few years of life.

Eating at McDonalds?

Having total cholesterol over 200, triglycerides around 150?

Eating red meat and fried foods?

Exercising less than 5 days a week?

Having a chronic illness? Migraines?

Being diagnosed with cancer?

All of those things have the potential to raise healthcare premiums, so if we are to follow some of the lines of argument suggested on this thread, only people who never actually need health care should be eligible to be hired by a company. That would be a great way to keep the premiums down. If you want to look at it that way, that hamburger and French fries might very well be my business. And worse, the company you work for might at some point consider it their business. It's a very slippery slope.

 

[ksinger]

I don't like smoking. As far as I'm concerned it's a smelly, unhealthy habit. I don't like sitting next to someone who is a smoker, because the smell on their clothing tends to transfer to my clothing, and then I have to go home and change my clothes.

I understand why a company would prefer not to pay the potentially increased costs associated with a smoker's health issues. Tobacco is one of the relatively few activities where there is a clear and direct correlation between using tobacco and cancer, heart disease, etc. I think it is perfectly reasonable for a company to restrict smoking breaks, provide incentives for quitting, require smokers to pay higher health insurance premiums, and so on.

However.

The jump from that to not hiring someone because of a legal activity they do on their own time is very big, and is the beginning of a very slippery slope. What other "unhealthy" or "expensive" things could be restricted?

Having more than one child? Heck, having any children. Well child visits are frequent and expensive in the first few years of life.

Eating at McDonalds?

Having total cholesterol over 200, triglycerides around 150?

Eating red meat and fried foods?

Exercising less than 5 days a week?

Having a chronic illness? Migraines?

Being diagnosed with cancer?

All of those things have the potential to raise healthcare premiums, so if we are to follow some of the lines of argument suggested on this thread, only people who never actually need health care should be eligible to be hired by a company. That would be a great way to keep the premiums down. If you want to look at it that way, that hamburger and French fries might very well be my business. And worse, the company you work for might at some point consider it their business. It's a very slippery slope.

Indeed it is. However, get ready for much much more of it. Since our prevailing social and political paradigm is to favor business over the individual (unless you become a corporate person), and since the move nationally is to break any remaining unions that once pushed for much-needed and sorely lacking basic decency on the part of employers, and since the employment situation will continue to foster that imbalance, I think we will see more and more of this.

Heck, before the HIPPA rules- back in the supposedly "good old days", I worked for a small company that could not get the insurance economies of scale of a larger one. They would change insurance once a year or so, always looking for a cheaper deal. Well, one year they called us all into a room and had their insurance broker give us the song and dance about how wonderful the new...blah blah. As we were filing out, they culled 2 employees out and pressured them: "You know, you two are driving the premiums up for everyone, so we've had our man here create these individual policies juuuust for you, and it would be really great if you'd do this." Well, what on earth do you do in that situation? For the record, each person had a family member with a chronic condition - one had a wife with MS, the other a child with cystic fibrosis.

Anyway, I was talking to one of them, and she told me all this, and I got angry. REALLY angry. They had both accepted the policies - which of course were written to EXCLUDE their family member from coverage for the first year. (but since they got new insurance every year...you see?) So I did a bit of research, marched back to them and informed them that this was flat-out illegal, and they should fight, because what our employer was doing was illegal and WRONG and I didn't care whether it cost me more, it was WRONG. Long story short, they ended up being able put the screws to the prime contract (we were on a subcontract) and were hired on by the prime, probably to avoid the litigation they knew they'd lose. But boy, scuttlebut was the prime was LIVID. If they had ever found out who fed them the info, they would have found SOME way to fire me I don't doubt for a second.

Bottom line in my book, it is too easy to be judgemental. We all do it, usually while assuming that no one could ever judge US harshly.

Anyone ever see Gattica? We may be headed there...