Home
Archive
Newsletters
Video
Blogs
Discuss
About
Search
Donate
Advertise

Fire Up; Get Fired?

By Tony Newman, AlterNet. Posted January 31, 2005.


When it comes to helping smokers quit, we should be offering compassion and understanding, instead of unemployment and shame.

Share and save this post:

      

      

Share on Facebook       

AlterNet Social Networks:
follow us on twitter
find us on Facebook

In Special Coverage

Belief:
Is Belief in God Hurting America?
David Villano

Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace:
The Vampire Banks Are Back: Will There Ever Be Meaningful Financial Reform?
Dean Baker

DrugReporter:
The War on Weed: Marijuana Is Basically Harmless -- The Monumentally Stupid Drug War Is Not
Jim Hightower

Environment:
White House Garden Won't Make Up for Obama's Nomination of Pesticide Lobbyist for US Chief Agriculture Negotiator
Jill Richardson

Food:
Don't Be Scared of Food: Are We Being Needlessly Hysterical About Food Safety?
David E. Gumpert

Health and Wellness:
47,000 Women Could Die As a Result of the New Mammogram Guidelines
George Lakoff

Immigration:
Hate Group, FAIR, Is Looking for "Ethnically Ambiguous" Actors to Amplify Its Racism
Adam Luna

Media and Technology:
The Memory Scrub About Why Ft. Hood Happened Is Almost Complete ... If It Weren't for Archives
Mark Ames

Movie Mix:
The Yes Men: Pranksters Out to Fix the World
Mark Engler

Politics:
Just When You Thought It Was Safe: 3 Potential Obstacles to Health-Care Reform
Adele M. Stan

Reproductive Justice and Gender:
Why Can't We Look Away From Sarah Palin?
Vanessa Richmond

Rights and Liberties:
Murder at Guantanamo? The Mysterious, Unsolved Death of Mohammad Saleh al Hanashi
Jeffrey S. Kaye

Sex and Relationships:
Hot Mormon Muffins and Models for Jesus: What's With All the Sexy Christians?
Liz Langley

Take Action:
G-20 Meetings: Nothing Much Happened in the Suites, and There Was Too Much Punch in the Streets
Laura Flanders

Water:
Poseidon's Financial Shell Game: Why Is a Private Desalination Plant Asking for Public Money?
Peter Gleick

World:
What Nidal Hasan, Timothy McVeigh, and the Beltway Sniper Have in Common: All Were Scarred by Pointless U.S. Wars
Nora Eisenberg

More stories by Tony Newman

Advertisement
Upcoming AlterNet stories on Digg

A Michigan-based heath care company recently fired four employees for refusing to take a test to determine whether they smoke cigarettes. The company, Weyco Inc., adopted a policy that allows them to fire employees for smoking, even if the employees smoke after business hours or at home. The founder of the company, Howard Weyers, said the anti-smoking rule was designed to protect the company from high heath care costs. "I don't want to pay for the results of smoking," he said.

As a cigarette addict and someone who works on drug policy issues, I find this policy both discriminatory and offensive.

It is outrageous to fire someone for smoking cigarettes. Following this logic, you could fire people for eating fast food or riding motorcycles on the weekend. The fact that people smoke on their own time has no impact on their ability to do their jobs. In its initial press release on this issue, the Drug Policy Alliance claimed facetiously that overweight people would be the next target. Amazingly, the founder of Weyco promised to establish an anti-obesity policy at his company.

The company's CFO credits the policy with helping 14 of Weyco's smokers quit. The ends, however, don't justify the means. If you threatened to throw those cigarette smokers in jail you would probably persuade some of them to quit as well. When it comes to helping people deal with addiction, we should be offering compassion and understanding, instead of unemployment and shame.

Last week I was on numerous talk radio shows during which some hosts and listeners argued that private companies have the right to hire and fire their employees. Having the legal right to do this doesn't make it right. The message such actions send is that these companies value paternalistic control of their employees over the quality of their work.

There is a growing recognition that cigarette smoking is harmful to smokers and causes hundreds of thousands of deaths a year. With this awareness, many states have passed helpful legislation that will save people's lives. As a smoker I support many of these initiatives, including the bar and restaurant ban. Even though I would enjoy a cigarette while having a drink after work, I appreciate other people's right to a non-smoking environment.

Positive incentives like gym membership reimbursements, or cessation aids like the smoking patch or Nicorette gum can be valuable aids to those who struggle with their addictions. By firing workers for smoking, we will turn off smokers and anti-smoking allies, and drive them to support the tobacco industry, as well as alienate them from the truly live-saving measures we should be promoting.

Digg!    Share on facebook   submit to reddit    Bookmark on Delicious   Stumble This  

Tony Newman is communications director for the Drug Policy Alliance.

Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from AlterNet! Sign up now »


Why Can't We Look Away From Sarah Palin?
Reproductive Justice and Gender: She's an incompetent has-been. Yet she keeps getting our attention. Is it that she embodies a set of contradictions that many women grapple with?
By Vanessa Richmond, AlterNet. November 24, 2009.
10 Tips for a Sustainable Thanksgiving
Food: Here's what you need to know, from tips on a meatless meal to options for a humanely raised turkey to having diversity on your actual dinner table.
By Sarah Newman, Takepart. November 24, 2009.
Why the New Breast Cancer Guidelines Are Racist
Reproductive Justice and Gender: Black women get breast cancer at younger ages, but the new breast-cancer guidelines entirely ignore that fact. This is the very definition of institutionalized racism.
By Devona Walker, The Loop. November 23, 2009.
Advertisement
Advertisement

 

  • AlterNetYour turn

Support AlterNet
Do you value the information you're getting from AlterNet? Please show your support with a tax-deductible donation.


Feedback
Tell us how we're doing.

Advertisement
Advertisement