Oh you Smoke? Employers getting strict on hiring Smokers.

[Dion]

Smoking Is Hazardous to Your Employment

In all, about four out of 10 employers reward or penalize employees based on tobacco use. But hiring bans, which are legal in 21 states, are gaining traction, with about 4% adopting the policy and an additional 2% planning to do so next year, according to a recent study by the National Business Group on Health and consulting firm Towers Watson (TW). Most firms simply ask job candidates if they smoke, but a few require candidates to take urine tests to be screened for nicotine, as part of a broader drug test.

"It's unethical," says Mr. Emanuel, chair of medical ethics and health policy at UPenn's Perelman School of Medicine. Employers' main motivation isn't employee health, he says, but "to get the smoker off their health bill and pass on the costs to someone else." (A spokeswoman for the school says the new policy isn't intended to be "discriminatory in any way" and is just aimed at reducing smoking.)

To be sure, employers say they have tried gentler measures, only to have poor results. At Cleveland Clinic, which imposed a hiring ban on smokers in 2007, CEO Delos "Toby" Cosgrove says he first tried banning smoking on the property and offering free cessation treatment—but that as long as the company continued to hire smokers, it was like "a doctor smoking a cigarette and telling you to stop smoking," he says. After the initial skepticism, he says, "I've gotten a lot of thanks for this, actually."

http://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/war...173111627.html

The questions that arise from this is wether it's ethical for companies to do this. Others suggest it is for health reasons as employers don't want smokers on thier health plan.

Do you agree ot disagree with the above?

[mykalberta]

Is it an ethical debate or a numbers debate?

No one is forcing anyone to smoke, and if the company pays for health insurance premium and their costs for a smoking employee are likely higher than a non smoker - then its a numbers game.

If the company doesnt offer health care then yes, its total discrimination.

[GP_Matt]

If it is a numbers game though I think the company should make the employee pay the difference in the premiums.
That said, I would welcome an office free of smokers and their stinky clothes.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Ethical? Maybe not, but certainly very much welcomed from the rest of us. Plus, you get an extra hour of productivity instead of those cancer cases having multiple 10 minute breaks to smoke a day. More productivity + likely lower health care costs = No brainer.

[dissentowner]

In regards to the urine test, what if the person is a nicotine lozenge addict so he does not smoke?

[Coys1882]

I assume the main argument will be 'why can you single out smokers for unhealthy life choices but not the obese?'

[GGG]

For me this is another the smoker shouldn't be punished for smoking. They should however pay the costs associated with their habbits.

Now having said this my family covered health plan costs much more than the single person health plan and I can use sick days for sick children so by the same logic shouldnt I have to top up my plan for having a family if a smoker has to top up their plan for smoking?

My only argument would be that a company uses benefits to attract workers and therefore offering good benefits to people with families helps improve retention. If a non-trade based company implemented charging smokers more for health care even if the smokers quit they could likely be replaced.

However if a Site in Fort Mac tried this they would lose all their employees to other companies.

So in the end I think it is up to the company if they want to decide to pay for an individuals choice and the individual should be required to pay based on company policy but an employer should never be able to not hire some one because they smoke

[ah123]

Definitely not ethical and a very slippery slope. What's next? Screening based on BMI? Genetic screening?

[Hockeyguy15]

This thread is going to be fun.

[Regulator75]

What about obese smokers?

[Dion]

Inquirer Editorial: Refusing to hire smokers won't work

Even if we assume that Penn and other employers are doing this for the good of society - and not just to lower their costs to provide employees with health benefits - they have crossed a boundary between discouraging smoking and demonizing smokers. Why is no one proposing such sanctions for other kinds of health liabilities, such as family history of heart disease? The stigma and misunderstanding surrounding addiction are part of the answer.

As Ezekiel Emanuel, a Penn vice provost and bioethicist, and two coauthors note in the commentary opposing Penn's pending policy, most of us should have the humility to recognize that addiction and other health problems could afflict us. "And," they add, "health-care organizations in particular should show compassion for their workers."

Addictions are by definition intractable, but we haven't accomplished much by removing addicts from society through imprisonment and other punishments. In fact, as the opposed authors point out, smoking rates are much higher among the unemployed and the poor. That doesn't bode well for the public-health results of policies that deny smokers a livelihood.

http://articles.philly.com/2013-04-0...urance-smokers

[longsuffering]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

Ethical? Maybe not, but certainly very much welcomed from the rest of us. Plus, you get an extra hour of productivity instead of those cancer cases having multiple 10 minute breaks to smoke a day. More productivity + likely lower health care costs = No brainer.

So if it's all about productivity, I'm guessing you'd support an internet ban at work (all non work related sites), a personal phone call ban, and monitored toilet breaks?

And since the employer is testing for nicotine, no reason they shouldn't test for alcohol. Hangovers don't help productivity.

Hell, lets measure blood sugar and blood pressure while we're at it.

(I'm a non-smoker)

[burn_baby_burn]

It could come down to image in some industries. Some companies probably don't like the image that a smoking employee portrays to the general public. Especially if they are wearing clothing with a company logo standing in front of the building.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by longsuffering

So if it's all about productivity, I'm guessing you'd support an internet ban at work (all non work related sites), a personal phone call ban, and monitored toilet breaks?

And since the employer is testing for nicotine, no reason they shouldn't test for alcohol. Hangovers don't help productivity.

Hell, lets measure blood sugar and blood pressure while we're at it.

(I'm a non-smoker)

Well to avoid the problem of smoke breaks, allow employees to smoke at their desks 1960s style.

Somehow I always have this silly impression that those old movies with journalists all chain smoking at their desks while rapping away on their type-writers were way more productive than today's journalists.

[CaramonLS]

Originally Posted by Coys1882

I assume the main argument will be 'why can you single out smokers for unhealthy life choices but not the obese?'

It's going to happen in the States.

Already some companies offer discounts on Health insurance based on your BMI.

[bizaro86]

Basically, they should also genetically screen you for anything that could ever go wrong, and then refuse to hire anyone without perfect genes.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119177/

[WesternCanadaKing]

This is discrimination, and unethical. They can avoid hiring smokers and ban it on their property, but how can they make an actual policy of it?

[FanIn80]

Originally Posted by Dion

Inquirer Editorial: Refusing to hire smokers won't work

http://articles.philly.com/2013-04-0...urance-smokers

This particular debate aside, comparing a smoker to a non-smoker with a family history of heart disease is ridiculous. Smokers willingly choose their risk of heart disease.


Disclaimer: I smoked over a pack-a-day for 17 years before quitting, and I haven't touched a cigarette since 2003. Having said that, every time I walk through a cloud of smoke on the way into a public building, I want to throttle one of them. Seriously. "Smoking outside" doesn't count if you're going to stand right beside the door and blow your smoke on everyone as they pass through.

[guzzy]

so they should. If you two people with the same qualifications and one smokes.....i would choose the non-smoker.

I look at the amount of time "SOME" smokers spend going for smokes it blows my mind. I come in at 8:00 and leave at 4:30 as do they but i am not running downstairs once an hours minimum.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Originally Posted by longsuffering

So if it's all about productivity, I'm guessing you'd support an internet ban at work (all non work related sites), a personal phone call ban, and monitored toilet breaks?

And since the employer is testing for nicotine, no reason they shouldn't test for alcohol. Hangovers don't help productivity.

Hell, lets measure blood sugar and blood pressure while we're at it.

(I'm a non-smoker)

Obviously I was just kind of joking about the productivity, this is obviously about avoiding health care costs whenever possible. But companies do block internet at work (as is their right), have policies to limit personal calls (as is their right), and can test for drugs and alcohol if they wish (trucking companies effectively requiring it). Monitoring toilet breaks is just ####ed up and any company that did that would be outed quickly.