The World Health Organization announced that it will no longer hire smokers. A spokesman said that the agency needs to be true to its principles in its hiring practices. But there are plenty of other unhealthy behaviors that the agency won’t be screening for. What about obese people or those who drink alcohol or engage in unsafe sex?
Posted by Melissa Cooley
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14 Comments
Unless people have unsafe sex or drink at work how would you know? Even people who are overweight can live long lives without significant health problems. Smoking is a bit more obvious and ALWAYS has detrimental health effects that can cost a fortune to treat, even if the smoker lives to be 90.I think it’s fine to not hire smokers. Maybe if we discriminated more, more people would quit and have better health.
Nobody denies the health risk in smoking, but I beg to differ with Damoon, in that smoking is the only health induced problem that people have that caused medical cost to go up. Being obese and an alcoholic will cause the same medical cost to go up.
Alcohol is by far the most dangerous of them all. People can kill themselves in one day with alcohol, not including all the social cost of drunk driving, domestic battery, and many crimes that occur are most likely alcohol related.
A smoker will outlive an alcoholic in lifespan pretty easily. You can ask any physican about that.
I’m not making the case for smoking. It is a serious health hazzard to your body. Most smokers are addicted, meaning that they smoke quite a bit. That is the big problem with smokers. They smoke too much and they have a difficult time quitting.
I know several smokers and they put away a pack a day pretty easily. They are out of shape and unhealthy cause of it. I also have a friend that is a light smoker (if there is such a thing). He smokes a couple of cigerattes on a Saturday night. Just like people who drink a couple of beers on a weekend. But he is the exception more than the norm.
We have vilified smokers and smoking and properly so. It makes them feel guilty and they should feel guilty, it helps them to quit. We have banned television ads for smoking, no cartoon characters, no ads near a school, public places and every indoor workplace is smoke free. And that is a good thing. Should companies and orginization have the right not to hire smokers? Sure! I think they should have the right to hire or not to hire anybody they want.
But they should define a smoker. If that means not one cigeratte ever, then they should say that. A company can say that they do not hire alcholoics, but somebody having a beer on a weekend, is that considered an alcholic?
What I find ironic about the whole smoking debate, is that we will vilify the tobaccco smoker, accept the drunk, and advocate for the pot smoker. I believe that tobacco smokers are targeted, because it is political popular to do so. We need to do the same for drunks, narcotic addicts, and pot smokers.
And before somebody starts up on pot on how it doesn’t kill you, better check the facts before you aurgue on that point. People do get lung cancer from smoking pot. And they get it much faster and eariler than tobacco smokers. Pot is not a safe habit.
Being a former smoker, I can agree with most of this..the health problems, the issues with second hand smoke, etc., but the trend is troubling.
To what extent should an employer have to regulate off work activities? Since skydiving is perceived as dangerous, can an employer refuse to employ people who like that activity? How about snow skiiers? Private pilots? Scuba divers? Horseback riders?
Any potentially dangerous activity could conceivably be reason for not hiring/employing someone. Do we REALLY want this? Or, is it ok as long as it doesn’t affect us… yet?
It costs the taxpayers billions of dollars each year for O2, breathing treatments, and medications for Medicaid recipients who have ruined their health by smoking. Did you know that they can buy cigarettes with a vision card? I wouldn’t have believed it until I saw it happen. When I asked the clerk about it, he told me that those who use vision cards can buy tobacco with the cash part of it. I wonder if that goes for alcohol, too? So not only does the government subsidize people’s smoking habits, then it pays to treat the damage to their health. There must be a better way.
Most large companies have no smoking policies inside and near entrances. The smoker has to prowl the parking lot to smoke while everybody else is working. When I was smoking and had to be in a No Smoking situation my concentration waned in less than an hour. Meetings always took ten every hour to avoid tension. No More!Lung Cancer is not a major problem. The problem starts with blood pressure pills. Obviously, shortness of breath comes soon after that. For most of us the heart starts clogging up first, followed by diabetes. Finally the lung operation gets so poor — well you know the rest. 20 years from first symptom to useless.If you hire a smoker you get a poorly performing worker that inevitably costs the company more in pills and medical bills that he is paid.Why would an employer hire a smoker that was going to cost significantly more that a non-smoker?
You’re right Codie. I wonder if anyone has done a study that figures out how many company work hours are lost due to people taking smoke breaks. I remember when I worked in the hospital, the nurses who smoked spent much more time off the floor than I did.
Sorry, I don’t buy the oversimplified generalizations of significant more costs for smokers. What about those (like myself, when I was smoking) who never took a sick day? Never had exhorbitant medical bills? Never had to leave the office because I was a 100% telecommuter working from home?
Villify smoking all you want, but please, let us stick with provable facts. Yes, I know that smoking is a bad thing, and yes I know that it can lead to disease, lost productivity, etc., etc. But to wildly and gross generalizations about ALL smokers in ALL situations. Not ALL smokers are underperformers or draining the health budget.
No, I am not defending smoking. I just do not believe in unsupported hype to try to make a point. Besides, we could go on to say that since Christopher Reeve ultimately died after extensive medical problems caused by falling off a horse, then ALL horse riders cause extensive medical bills and are lousy employees?
Nope..that is not accurate either. So, please, when arguing about limiting personal out of work activities, let’s keep it to provable fact.
Joe has it absolutely right.Well at least the non-smokers will be able to smell all the politically correct hang-overs!!!!How healthy and evidently OK.
For the rest of the issues you need only a sign at the front door:FAT GAY DRUNKS NEED NOT APPLY!
Hell Ray, I didn’t mean all cases. But the few exceptions you mentioned change nothing. If I was HR in a large company and was hiring long term personnel in a non smoking setting I would not hire someone us. Statistically a dumb thing for them to do.Of course Fat and Gay are even worse that us.
Sounds like graduates from Oral Roberts University–lol
This thought still concerns me. Fine, ban smoking from the planet as far as I am concerned, but what is next? Will companies refuse to hire fat people because of health related problems? Will companies be allowed to force employees to undergo regular blood pressure checks?
Or, like my initial worry, banning out of work activities that someone, somewhere determines to be dangerous? Jet skiing? Ice Skating? Swimming?
Scary to think…you open this door of regulating off work activities and there is no telling where it could end.
Ray, it’s already being done.It’s called DRUG TESTING.The damned gov’t. thinks that if you smoked a doobie six weeks ago you are unsafe and too immoral to put the nut on the bolt eight or ten hours a day.
But the guy next to you running REALLY dangerous machinery is OK with his terrible hangover.
For better or worse, drugs are illegal. (I am not making judgments about that one.) Drug testing is testing for an illegal activity.
I am just concerned about safety nannies deciding for us what we can and cannot do. Will horseback riding become illegal because someone might get hurt? One of the scariest phrases in legislator’s lingo is “if it saves ONE life, it is worth it”.
*sigh*