I am very interested in the anti-smoking employment policies being instituted at many companies -- basically if you smoke anywhere, any time, you can be fired. Companies such as Weyco, Investors Property Management Inc., Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories and most notably, Scotts Miracle Grow have instituted "smoke and be fired" policies for all their employees.
Other companies refuse to hire smokers and a few have had these policies in the past and quietly dropped them: CNN, for instance.
I could go on and on about what an incredible infringement on our personal rights this policy is. About how if they say you can't smoke, what about drinking? Overeating? Skydiving? Having sex with the scary girl you picked up in a bar the night before? I could but I won't. Because here's the thing. If you're in a state that is employment at-will (and most are) you can be fired for holding your tongue wrong while using a yo-yo. Or any other stupid thing, so long as there isn't a statute that says it's illegal (like gender, age, religion, ethnicity). People can and do get fired for being too fat. People can and do get fired for buying a competitive product.
So just assume that you have no work rights.
That is my soap-box for today. Thank you.
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I find it interesting too, since I work for a company owned by a guy who's eleveted not smoking to a fetish. And as long as smokers use the ash-cans in the smoking area he's fine.
The question isn't so much whether you have the right to smoke. It's more an issue of what kind of employer tries to micro-manage that kind of behavior? And what does it cost them? Health insurance is getting really expensive, and that's probalby the bigest thing making companies think they'll come out ahead on this kind of policy. But the policy has costs too.
For one thing, if you eliminate smokers from your pool of potential hires, you may find yourself paying more in wages to attract employees. For another, if you enforce the policy in a discriminatory matter (if someone can document that women get fired for smoking and men get a pass, for instance), then your 'employment at will' defense is gone. Ditto for fat people of any other non-protected group. A non-protected behavior is almost always engaged in by someone who has a protected characteristic (in Kansas age discrimination is so loosely defined it's illegal to discriminate against the young).
If you have an EAP that offers drug rehab to employees with cocaine problems and you're summarily firing smokers, you're keister is probably in a legal sling again.
I suspect these little complications and a bunch of others I haven't thought of are why CNN dropped it, and why the clowns doing it now will probably give it up in the end.
Very good point.
I wonder if anyone's been fired for this yet?
My husband quit smoking for three days last week and was such an absolute nightmare from hell during the entire 72 hours that we nearly got a divorce.
If his company instituted this policy, he'd either be fired for smoking or fired for his behavior.
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