Company Fires All Employees Who Smoke

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Company Fires All Employees Who Smoke

Michigan Firm Won't Allow Smoking, Even On Employee's Own Time

UPDATED: 8:20 AM EST January 25, 2005

LANSING, Mich. -- Four employees of a health care company have been fired for refusing to take a test to determine whether they smoke cigarettes.

Weyco Inc., a health benefits administrator based in Okemos, Mich., adopted a policy Jan. 1 that allows employees to be fired if they smoke, even if the smoking happens after business hours or at home.

Company founder Howard Weyers has said the anti-smoking rule was designed to shield the firm from high health care costs. "I don't want to pay for the results of smoking," he said.

The rule led one employee to quit before the policy was adopted. Four others were fired when they balked at the smoking test.

Chief Financial Officer Gary Climes estimated that 18 to 20 of the company's 200 employers were smokers when the policy was announced in 2003. Of those, as many as 14 quit smoking before the policy went into effect. The company offered them help to kick the habit.

"That is absolutely a victory," Climes said.

On the company's Web site, it states:

Weyco Inc. is a non-smoking company that strongly supports its employees in living healthy lifestyles.

http://www.wral.com/news/4126577/detail.html

[edit:fixed formatting]
 
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I can't believe that this is legal. I mean, can a company fire employees for something that they do on their own time that is perfectly legal?

I hope that this isn't the beginning of a trend. If so, it is a dangerous one indeed.

How about firing employees for drinking alcohol, eating fatty/sugary foods. What if a company wanted to fire all of its employees that are overweight so they dont have to pay for the health care costs associated with them? Where would it end?

I just can't believe that this is legal. I don't know the laws associated with it, but it just doesn't seem right. Isn't this discrimination.

Scary Shit.

Someone who knows the legality of this, please chime in. As a smoker(among other habits), I am really curious to hear more about this issue.
 
How about firing employees for drinking alcohol, eating fatty/sugary foods
Click to expand...

Yup, coming soon to Corporate HQ near you.

8o

Weyco Inc. is a non-smoking company that strongly supports its employees in living healthy lifestyles
Click to expand...
So binge drink and eat bacon and burgers all week long, just don't smoke.
 
Yeah but if it costs the company extra money for group health care coverage because some employees are smokers what should they do?
 
Ahh.. and the slippery slope REALLY starts to slide.

I thought one of the purposes of group health insurance was to even out the costs from various life styles / genetic makeup / environment upbringing?
 
^^ That's not the point, the issue here is how can a company forbid you from using a perfectly legal product on your own time ? Whether it's cigarretes , alcohol , hamburgers or candy I fail to see a difference.

That is because, if all they are trying to do is to keep their "insurance costs down", it should be simple : Tell the employees that the health insurance is inexpensive because it excludes smokers therefore if you want the benefits you can't smoke, or you opt out of the health plan.

But they should not be allowed to fire you if you refuse.
 
The health insurance carrier for a group plan does not ask specifically about each employee. The group plans are rated based on the fact that a certain percentage of the poplulation smokes. The rate is flat and based on how many employees are covered by the plan. Group Health insurance plans do not charge more for employers who employ smokers.

The issue of smokers costing everyone money in health care costs can also be used for fast food, dangerous hobbies, drinking alcohol, not exercising, sexual promiscuity et al. This is not a valid reason to take someone's livelihood. They are partaking in something legal which in no way effects the company's bottom line.
 
To Crazee...

I got the point. My comment was that I believe the intrusivness of companies and the government in the "Land of the Free" has reached a critical point over the last 10 years.

Either privacy advocates *successfully* push back now, the US will be an even MORE nasty place to live for those that have livestyles "out of the normal conformity".

It is truly disgusting that a company even *THINKS* they have that right. I am surprised how the employees immediately got in line - either by quitting smoking or quitting the job. Sheep sheep sheep.

If I worked for them I'd start smoking, get fired, and sue their asses.

You guys need some new PRIVACY laws down there. OTHER than the one in the constitution - that one people don't seem to understand? Could you please dump your constitution down a bit so the judges can understand?
:D
 
that's fucking ridiculous
if they want to cut health insurances, theyd have ot ban all unhealthy activities, especially alcohol.. but thats not going to happen, most ppl "social" drink

and cant they just refuse their health insurance to those who smoke? why the hell would they FIRE them?

i read a speech by a guy tlaking about the history of prohibition, that America is in a pattern where it will always find a new idea or chemical or practice to ban, thinking that banning it will solve so many of its current problems, and he claimed the next major thing to be banned will be cigarettes... think about it, it started as "you should quit for yourself, its unhealthy" then it went to "you better quit, your killing us with secondhand smoke" which is bullshit, ive seen tons of articles on cigarettes affecting nonsmokers that are completely unscientific, now its "you have to quit, we're not going to be reasonable and deny you health insurance, we'll just plain fire you for an invalid reason cuz we dont like cigarettes"

cigarettes are more and more becoming a lower class thing, and so its more and more an "US vs THEM" issue, where the middle/upper class punishes the lower class for smoking

this country is supposed to be about freedom
 
Didn't you know? Prohibition is cool. And works... I mean, its not like tobacco would still be arround underground if it was made ilegal... </sarcasm>
 
Why not cut the health benefits to smokers? Oh, that would be discrimination. Apparently firing someone isn't.
 
That is not legal discrimination. Smoking is a chosen behavior. Your skin color/disability/ethnicity is not. The law only protects you in instances of things you can't change. (Barring religion, but that's another story....) Private companies retain the right to hire or fire anyone at any time they please for any reason, as long as it's not blatantly (legally) discriminatory. Period.

I'm not saying it's right, but it's the law. This is just the same as being drug tested. It's a (very) rudimentary way of trying to lower costs and increase production. At least with cigarettes, there is a very clear correlation between use and increased health care costs. With the use of many drugs, the impact on worker ability is little to none, as is the impact on health care costs. Frankly, I kind of have to side with the company on this one. Smoking is one of the few things that 90% of the time has a *massive* impact on health care costs. Smokers have billions of dollars worth of complications that non-smokers don't have. Maybe the company shouldn't be firing them, but it's not really irrational.

And once again, I'm not saying it's right. Before any of you go and attack me... :)
 
Update...Co. to Fire Overweight workers too.

http://olympics.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=healthNews&storyID=7440773


By Andrew Stern
CHICAGO (Reuters) - The owner of a Michigan company who forced his employees to either quit smoking or quit their jobs said on Wednesday he also wants to tell fat workers to lose weight or else.

A ban on tobacco use -- whether at home or at the workplace -- led four employees to quit their jobs last week at Okemos, Michigan-based Weyco Inc., which handles insurance claims.

The workers refused to take a mandatory urine test demanded of Weyco's 200 employees by founder and sole owner Howard Weyers, a demand that he said was perfectly legal.

"If you don't want to take the test, you can leave," Weyers told Reuters. "I'm not controlling their lives; they have a choice whether they want to work here."

Next on the firing line: overweight workers.

"We have to work on eating habits and getting people to exercise. But if you're obese, you're (legally) protected," Weyers said.

He has brought in an eating disorder therapist to speak to workers, provided eating coaches, created a point system for employees to earn health-related $100 bonuses and plans to offer $45 vouchers for health club memberships.

The 71-year-old Weyers, who said he has never smoked and pronounced himself in good shape thanks to daily runs, said employees' health as well as saving money on the company's own insurance claims led him to first bar smokers from being hired in 2003.

Last year, he banned smoking during office hours, then demanded smokers pay a monthly $50 "assessment," and finally instituted mandatory testing.

Twenty workers quit the habit.

Weyers tells clients to quit whining about health care costs and to "set some expectations; demand some things."

Job placement specialist John Challenger said Weyco's moves could set a precedent for larger companies -- if it survives potential legal challenges.

"Certainly it raises an interesting boundary issue: rising health care costs and society's aversion to smoking versus privacy and freedom rights of an individual," Challenger said.

So far no legal challenges have been made to Weyco's policies.
 
they should start firing black people... niggas get capped a lot.. brings up health insurance price
 
God damn, what won't a greedy corportate fuck do for money?

Fuck capitalism, it always manages to step all over our personal freedoms. I mean think about it, this man is already paying his employees a fraction of what they're labor is worth. We waste eight or more hours every day of our lives until we get old serving these rich old bastards. The only way to (legally) free yourself from that cycle is to get to the top and start to fuck people over in the same fashion. It's disgusting. And if all of that weren't bad enough, now they're going to control our personal lives and what we put in our bodies.

To whoever said this country is about freedom, that's a farce. The US government would gladly piss all over your freedom to make a quick buck. Look at all those poor Iraqis for example.

This country never has been about freedom. Freedom is a carrot they dangle in front of our noses to lead us to servitude. This country was started by a bunch of rich old guys who didn't want to pay taxes to rich old guys on the other side of the ocean.
 
qwe said:
they should start firing black people... niggas get capped a lot.. brings up health insurance price
Click to expand...

LMFAO.

And to kitteninthedark. I completely disagree with you. Why should someone get fired over smoking on their own time away from work? So it drives up healthcare costs.....simply dont include them in the plan. However i guess this makes sense, if the person ends up missing X amount of days...(i.e. TOO MANY) just because they smoke. Aside from healthcare costs, its simply not cost efficient to have a worker that is always missing work from emphasema/bronchial infections...etc. Afterall they DONT have to work there. But if it is just because of insurance costs, that is blatantly rediculous. People CAN pay for their own insurance you know.
 
And next, this same company is going after over weight employees. No joke--it was on the news Friday morning.
 
DexterMeth - Do you read? Check those last two lines again. I said that I didn't think it was right for them to do this, just that it was rational. God I hate when people don't read...

Frankly, I'd like to see more companies taking part in their employees' lives to encourage healthy behavior. I don't think that this is really the right way to approach it, but at least it's a start. The ideas about health club vouchers and "health bonuses" are spot on. Companies should have a vested interest in their workers' health and happiness, and it would be great to see more steps in that direction. Happy, healthy workers are productive workers - it blows my mind how many companies have yet to figure that out... At the Koss headphone company, every employee has essentially "stock" in the company, and every year they get a nice chunk of change if the company does well. This past summer, when one of their long-time employees died, everyone in the factory got the day of the funeral off with pay. Everyone's birthday is celebrated. How many companies do that kind of thing?

All I know is that even though this company has clearly overstepped its bounds, it will be a good catalyst for discussion, and perhaps a step towards a more community-based approach to healthy living, in and out of the workplace.
 
^^ Encouraging healthy lifestyles by employers on volunteer basis which you are referring to is a positive step, however firing people does not serve this purpose.
 
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