Cleveland Clinic bans hiring of smokers

Mixed feeling on the issue. I hate smoking, but I’d imagine the slippery slope is the employers being able to dictate what people do in the privacy of their homes.

Slightly off-topic, but found this old story by accident and couldn’t resist: In some professions they can fire you for being “too fat”.

Does anyone worry about the health reasoning though? I can understand banning things from the workplace, but banning an activity outside of the work setting seems inappropriate. I know work pays for their health insurance, but why couldn’t they decide in the future using that reasoning that you can’t consume trans fats, or require you to be a certain weight, or exercise, or watch less tv. This is why health insurance should never have been linked to work in the first place. If we bought it ourselves, like car insurance, then employers wouldn’t have any reason to ban smokers from employment, and they wouldn’t because there’d be no real cost incentive.

I think the slippery slope is the definition of “nasty habits.” Another comment mentioned the ballerina fired for being too fat, but shouldn’t that also be taken into consideration by these hiring authorities? There are compelling health and economic impacts of obesity documented by the CDC.

OK, we don’t have to hire the overweight and the smokers.

What about people who ride motorcycles? Certainly no employer should be forced to provide insurance for someone who so recklessly risks his/her life, right? Those who ride motorcycles, go sky-diving, bungee-jumping, sailing, etc. shouldn’t be hired. Their risky hobbies place an unreasonable (potential) burden on employers.

And what about people who enjoy international travel? Or are clinically depressed? Or are atheists? Or are single?

That’s the slippery slope I see. I agree, it makes some sense for a health care entity to promote healthy lifestyles. But how intrusive should our employers become in our non-work lives? Where does that line get drawn, and who gets to draw it? What is out of bounds, and why?

RJ

“If we bought [health insurance] ourselves, like car insurance, then employers wouldn’t have any reason to ban smokers from employment …”

Most patients strongly desire not to have an open sewer breathing on them, and for those with asthma, migraine, allergies, and so forth it poses a real health threat.

I had a co-worker who took up flying small airplanes like Cessna’s. He was told that the company’s life insurance program would no longer cover him. So he had to give up flying, since he had a family to take care of. He also found that he couldn’t get private life insurance for the same reason.

Employers have a lot of latitude in deciding what benefits they will provide and for who, under what circumstances. And since it’s employment-at-will, they can choose who they will and won’t hire, as long as it doesn’t involve race, sex, age, etc.

It may not be fair or moral, but it is legal.

Cathy, read the first post in this thread. There is legal discrimination, to be distiguished from illegal discrimination, and employers may excercise it at their pleasure.

The at-will employment doctrine is and always has been the default. Smokers are not in a protected class, and employers have a right not to hire them.

There are rational reasons ad nauseum why an employer might wish to refuse employment to a smoker or all smokers. However, in matter of fact, they have a right to be irrational about it.

No one is obligated to hire a smoker, a nose=picker, and ugly-shoe wearer, a sky-diver, or a person with a disturbing laugh…and they can fire you because it is a Tuesday. Contract employees may have special rights, Unions may negotiate special rules or rights, but the default is you have no special rights to be hired or retained as an employee so long as the discrimination used by the employer is legal.

I have to agree to disagree with the Cleveland Clinic’s decision to not hire smokers. I am just glad to have FINALLY found somewhere to say my opinion. I live in Dayton, OH so I have no clue about the clinic’s current employees, but I have to admit I find it very scary that employers are beginning to control our private life. I agree that smoking is a nasty habit (I am a smoker) and I have watched too many family members die from emphazyma (so why do I still smoke??). I also agree that the smell of smoke is disgusting (again, why do I smoke??). It’s an addiction–I think it’s great that the clinic is offering free ‘stop-smoking’ seminars, but there are free seminars everywhere, so is this really a benefit that the current employees should be jumping with joy about?

Kind of going off topic–what is wrong with employers today? What happened to if you did your job right and worked hard you were set for life (or at least retirement)? It’s sad to see how far we have drifted from honoring our hard working Americans—instead now we are refusing to offer jobs just because we don’t agree with their private life-style. To say the least, I’m not angry at the situation, I’m just sad that America has come to this–which makes me wonder, why do we have so many immigrants still fighting to come to America for freedom?

Smoking isn’t really something you can keep “private.” It stays on you, even hours later, and can trigger asthma attacks and even headaches in others around you. I think it’s great that the Cleveland Clinic is putting pressure on negative habits. I think trans fats should be illegal and so should smoking. Maybe the steps by the Cleveland Clinic will help trigger some legislation in these areas.

Would you want a healthcare worker who was under the influence of pot working on you? Would you want a healthcare worker who was a smoker working on you if you were a diabetic? Would you want a healthcare worker who was unable to lift you try to lift you anyway? (Healthcare workers are usually tested for ability to lift a certain amount of weight.)

Healthcare workers are often required to uphold a certain standard of morality, ethics, and way of life because they are healthcare workers. If they fail to do so, they place their job at risk as well as their licenses, etc.

With all the negative health impacts of smoking and eating a poor diet it makes sense that healthcare workers should set an example.

If you remember the clinic having the entrance with the benches and the fountain…then you haven’t been to the clinic in about 5 or more years. That has been gone forever.

The reason that they do not fire current employees is called a “grandfather clause”. They especially cannot fire doctors, who are required to sign contracts, if that is not in their contract.

Most employees I know who work at the Clinic do not wish to smoke in front of patients, etc. They used to have protected areas that were not heavily traveled by patients or anyone in general. Very out of the way places. And there was a rule for at least the last 10 years that I know of, that NOBODY, employee or patient, was to be smoking within 30 feet of an entrance to a building.
Now, they have forced employees and patients/visitors alike to huddle in bus shelters, on streets behind parked cars and in other business’s parking lots to smoke. You can’t make people quit smoking, no matter how disgusting you think it is (or even they think it is)–it’s called personal freedom.