You smoke? You're fired!

[Tony]

Still waiting for you to address the factual legal links I provided, or to come up with some of your own.
Not that you ever will.

I don't address non-relevant material.

Stick to the racist trolling Tony, it warns people what you are much more quickly.

Racist trolling? Here's that paranoid victim complex I just mentioned.

 

[shanek]

Since the case at hand deals with someone smoking on their own property, this is not relevant.

No, it's not. It was irrelevant for you to bring up the right to smoke to begin with. The privilege here is of having a job. You don't have a right to it.

 

[Tony]

That's a lie Tony. Nothing I have said comes close validating this statement.

Then I apologize, I was getting your position mixed up with shaneK's. Surely you can understand that after 14 pages of posts that can happen?

I have actually made several statements to the contrary.

Then I must have missed it. Can you please offer your personal opinion on the matter?

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/01/26/no.smoking/

Be fair, that wasn't the article posted in the OP in this thread, or the other thread.

But, I take your point.

 

[Tony]

No, it's not. It was irrelevant for you to bring up the right to smoke to begin with.

I didn't bring it up dumbass. I was addressing Diogene's post about smoking being a privilege.

 

[Tony]

"So the principle isn't about the employer being able to fire anyone for any reason, but it's being able to fire employees for any reason, as long as the reason could be enforced on the premises of the employer."


Here we go folks...it is the famous flip-flop...
Tony is going to steal the very idea he has been arguing against all along, and claim it as his, thereby abandoning the arguments for which he could produce no facts, and stealing all of his opponent's facts at the same time.

What a brilliant stragey!!!

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If that's your interpretation of what I've said, then whoa, you've got severe problems or English must be your 5th language.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

Then I apologize, I was getting your position mixed up with shaneK's. Surely you can understand that after 14 pages of posts that can happen?



Then I must have missed it. Can you please offer your personal opinion on the matter?

I'm going to have to get back to you on this later..

For a quick refresher just click on my profile and look at my last few posts.. Try to filter out the ones where I was trying to be a smart ass, and see if there is a little substance..


Thanks for apologizing..

 

[Cain]

Isn't this what I've been saying all along? Libertarians don't really give a sh1t about freedom. They're not libertarians at all. They're fake libertarians. In point of fact, they're propertarians.

Now, with that said this company could make a somewhat reasonable case against hiring smokers. But that's only another reason to have some kind of universal healthcare system. That is to say, what one does "off" of work can effect the workplace (think of an alcoholic responsible for operating heavy machinery).

The interesting arguments arise when a company says that you can no longer be an employee because the boss is a born again Christian and he hates gays/atheists/blacks/Democrats/take your pick. There was a case back in the seventies where a boss saw one of his employees holding up a sign that said "Impeach Nixon". Being a bit of a Nixon fan, he fired the guy.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

Now, with that said this company could make a somewhat reasonable case against hiring smokers. But that's only another reason to have some kind of universal healthcare system.

Sounds like a whole new thread, but here goes...


Am I understand, that you want the right to inhale smoke, and have me pay your medical bills?

 

[Solitaire]

Originally posted by Diogenes
Sounds like a whole new thread, but here goes...
Am I understand, that you want the right to inhale smoke,
and have me pay your medical bills?

Yes, that's a good starting point.

The medical cost exists as a part of total compensation
determined by worker productivity; therefore, if I were
to smoke- and trust me I'd never do such a stupd thing
- you would look at my offer for my labor and decide if
you would be willing to hire me for that price or otherwise.
But this skirts around the issue discrimination rather badly.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

Yes, that's a good starting point.

The medical cost exists as a part of total compensation
determined by worker productivity; therefore, if I were
to smoke- and trust me I'd never do such a stupd thing
- you would look at my offer for my labor and decide if
you would be willing to hire me for that price or otherwise.
But this skirts around the issue discrimination rather badly.

Pay attention private.. ( Just kidding.. Must have slipped into my Sgt. Ermey persona, there )


I was responding to Cain's call for universal healthcare, where I pay for his lung transplant and he pays for my hemorrhoidectomy...

Cain did not seem to consider, that even under a Universal Healthcare system, any given employer's liability to lost productivity, due to high risk behavior on the part of employees would not be lessened..

 

[Cain]

Sounds like a whole new thread, but here goes...


Am I understand, that you want the right to inhale smoke, and have me pay your medical bills?

You're right. This is a topic for a different thread.

If you wanted to discuss universalized healthcare it would be silly and illogical to jump in with this topic because there are more fundamental principles. For example, would you have a problem with "pay[ing] [my] medical bills" if a disgruntled ex-girlfriend shot me in the face before killing herself?

(Off topic: Incidentially I was recently reading an essay by Murray Rothbard, a hardcore libertarian anarcho-capitalist, who said that parents are not obligated to feed and clother their children. If a parents want to starve their daughter to death, then they should be allowed to do so. Don't worry though: rational actors in a "free society" would never let their offspring starve when there's a thriving adoption market in place.)

What if it could be shown empirically that risky behavior like smoking decreased total social costs? (Think of helmet laws in this respect: imagine if lethal accidents had a lower associated cost than near lethal accidents). Though these are interesting topics for discussion they are beside the point.

Cain did not seem to consider, that even under a Universal Healthcare system, any given employer's liability to lost productivity, due to high risk behavior on the part of employees would not be lessened..

You're ignoring fundamentals once again. I acknowledged in my initial post that smoking could be deemed a relevant concern to prospective employers. As this relates to individual productivity rather than healthcare costs seems rather tenuous at best. Can you cite any studies showing that smoking signficantly effects job performance? For some reason I highly doubt that this is a serious concern for prospective employers. Academic qualifications, distance from work, reliability, and personality seem much more important. The labor market as it is, people probably aren't going to have the same job in 15 years. But supposing that 10, 20 years down the line if years of smoking finally effect an employee's ability to do her job, then she can be fired for lagging behind.

The main issue, as I see it, as I said in my earlier post, as I emphasized in my earlier post -- the fundamental point you're ignoring -- relates to activities that are clearly not work related. And we can argue over what those behaviors might consist be. My sexual orientation, the brand of beer that I like, the God I worship, and these sort of things. Gay (man-on-man) sex is risky behavior. Engaging in promiscuous sex is risky behavior. There's always the chance that a young woman can get pregnant and foil an employer's plans. And of course generally irrelevant characteristics or behaviors could conceivably effect particular jobs.

Synchronicity got it right in his tersely worded reply to your post: "[T]his skirts around the issue discrimination rather badly."

 

[Skeptical Greg]

I need to hear more about the issue discrimination.


Are you talking about the unjust discrimination against smokers?



P.S.

I understand about the costs of helmet and seatbelt laws..

I'm fine with doing away with them...

It's really silly to require motorcycle riders to wear helmets, but not require auto drivers to wear them also..

 

[gnome]

The affadavits are fine, although they probably wouldn't stand up in court. The observers almost certainly violate election laws.

It wouldn't surprise me if you were right, but I'm not familiar with the law in that respect. Aren't polling places public access, as long as you don't harass the voters?

The distinction is, with your voting rights they would have to go outside of their property to enforce it.

If their ability to enforce it on their propery is the only issue with you, we're not exactly done. I really hate to keep constructing such far-fetched hypotheticals, but I don't think this is a sufficient answer. Say for example the company owned property within binocular distance of most local polling places, close enough to identify employees entering? Rather than make this an exercise in constructing hypotheticals... can we assume they have a way, and address the question of whether it's an acceptable requirement?

 

[shanek]

It wouldn't surprise me if you were right, but I'm not familiar with the law in that respect. Aren't polling places public access, as long as you don't harass the voters?

There are all sorts of rules, which probabyl vary from state-to-state. In NC, you're not allowed to do any sort of campaigning or within 50' of the polling place, you need to be 50' away from the polling place if you're there for so-long and you're not standing in line, etc.

Say for example the company owned property within binocular distance of most local polling places, close enough to identify employees entering?

Most places have "peeping tom" laws preventing you from looking into the property of others to see what's going on. That would probably apply here.

And the person could probably get around it by wearing a hooded coat. This is November, after all.

can we assume they have a way, and address the question of whether it's an acceptable requirement?

To do so without violating the law would be so difficult and easy for the worker to circumvent it wouldn't be worth the effort.

 

[Santa666]

my two cents...

This is my first ever post, so please bear with me, I will likely ramble.

I have actually taken the time to read EVERY post on all 14 pages before posting a reply and I have found this entire thread quite interesting, but utterly repetetive. I happen to fall on the side of those who believe the employer here is wrong, but currently within his LEGAL rights under our current system of laws.

Several people have brought up non-smoking and hypothetical examples in order to make arguments in this thread and have been shot down for doing so because they are "meaningless" or "not relevant" to the issue at hand (smoking). Hypothetical situations and non-smoking examples are perfectly fine here, because the issue at hand here is not smoking, its activity "X". Activity X can be any activity an employee engages in during their own private time which does not affect their job performance or the company itself (i.e. conflict of interest, wearing company peraphenalia while screaming profanities at passersby on the street, etc...) and is also LEGAL. It does not matter if this activity is voting, sex, smoking, making paper airplanes, or eating bagels. What matters is that it is a prohibited (by the company) LEGAL activity an employee is engaging in on his/her own time. It is also irrevalent HOW the company determines that the employee is engaging in said activity (wire tap, video survailance, blood samples, etc...), only that they can find out. Here is what is having thus far.

Activity X - any LEGAL activity (smoking, eating, watching tv, consentual sex, etc...) unrelated to job performance which does not put company interests at risk (this definition could use some work, but its a start and you get the gist of what it means).

Employee 1 - engages in activity X solely on his own time, in his own home.

Employer 1 - bans engaging in activity X for all employees and states any employee found to be engaging in activity X will be fired. A test exists which can be used to determine if an employee is engaging in activity X. Fail the test, you are fired, refuse the test, you are fired. You may also quit, of course.

QUESTION(s):

Is is ok for the company to ban activity X for employees on their own time, and then to fire them if they engage in said activity?

-the answer here should be a resounding no for everyone. Some are going to say I am leaping down a slippery slope here, but really, where do you draw the line? How many personal activities can be censored before its NOT ok to do so anymore? Now I have seen the arguments that a particular activity, smoking, can increase health care costs, thus making it a good candidate for banning and good reason to dismiss an employee. There are two answers to that one. First, Ladyhawk posted an answer that no one has attempted to refute, concerning whether having smokers on staff would actually increase costs, which it does not. Secondly, there are hundreds of relatively common ailments, diseases, and afflictions which require constant funding to treat (diabetes, arthritis, hypoglycemia, asthma, etc...). These are all a drain on healthcare costs, but no one has a problem with them (and they shouldn't).

Is it coercion to threaten dismissal for engaging/not engaging in activity X.

Basically, the company says, we are changing the conditions for your employment with us. You must stop engaging in activity X or be fired. Is this the same thing as stating, you must BEGIN engaging in activity X or be fired. For the intents of this argument, this is essentially the same thing, BEGIN or DESIST engaging in activity X or be fired. So here it is, is there ANY type of activity which would qualify as activity X (assuming my definition is acceptable), where is would be considered coercion to threaten dismissal from their job for performing/not performing said activity? If there are any such activities that fit this criterion, then all activities that qualify as activity X (including smoking) would fit as well.

None this changes that fact that the employer currently has the legal right to dismiss its employees for smoking, but that doesn't mean he SHOULD have that right. If its coercion, its wrong, if its not coercion, then the employer is right.

That is all for me. Perhaps my argument above is fatally flawed, but I do not care. I am willing to take that chance. I am sure I also missed some fundamental piece of logic or totally ignored a relavant argument, just let me know what it was. Please feel free to dissect and tear apart what I have said. I look forward to any feedback, good, bad, insulting, or even degrading. You wont hurt my feelings. Thanks in advance.

 

[Kiless]

Re: my two cents...

This is my first ever post, so please bear with me, I will likely ramble.

Nice to meet you Santa666! Oh, if you do the same reading for Mercutio's limerick thread or his Top Ten list, you'll not post again for five years. You have been warned.

 

[Ian Osborne]

Re: my two cents...

This is my first ever post, so please bear with me, I will likely ramble.

Yes, welcome to the forums. After 14 pages, this is a nice summary of the arguments of those who feel the employer was wrong.

 

[gnome]

To do so without violating the law would be so difficult and easy for the worker to circumvent it wouldn't be worth the effort.

Again, however, you're using a problem of practicality to avoid the core issue. If it could be done from a practical standpoint, would it be an acceptable requirement? That's all I want to know.

 

[crimresearch]

Re: my two cents...

This is my first ever post, so please bear with me, I will likely ramble.

I have actually taken the time to read EVERY post on all 14 pages before posting a reply and I have found this entire thread quite interesting, but utterly repetetive. I happen to fall on the side of those who believe the employer here is wrong, but currently within his LEGAL rights under our current system of laws.
...SNIP...
That is all for me. Perhaps my argument above is fatally flawed, but I do not care. I am willing to take that chance. I am sure I also missed some fundamental piece of logic or totally ignored a relavant argument, just let me know what it was. Please feel free to dissect and tear apart what I have said. I look forward to any feedback, good, bad, insulting, or even degrading. You wont hurt my feelings. Thanks in advance.

Hi, welcome to the forums, and thanks for taking the time to wade thorugh everything and accurately assess the distinction between legality and rectitude.

I don't find anything fatally flawed in your position. There is something wrong with the notion that workers can't just go home and spend their off duty hours engaged in activities that their employers may wish to prohibit.

I must be missing a small piece of information on the costs of smoking, in that the insurance/actuarial references seem to indicate that an employer will pay lower premiums if they can get a non-smoking work force (and I missed the refutation you mentioned)..but it really isn't central the the question of how far someone should be able to go in the name of being the boss.

So at this point, what would you suggest to change things?

IS the ACLU model legislation useful? Are unions currently of any use in helping employees gain a right that the courts don't endorse?

 

[Skeptical Greg]

Re: my two cents...

QUESTION(s):

Is is ok for the company to ban activity X for employees on their own time, and then to fire them if they engage in said activity?

No it is not..

But, it is O.K. ( under current law ) for them to make ' not smoking ' a condition of continued employment ..

It's as simple as that..

Perhaps we could discuss activity X in another thread ?