You smoke? You're fired!

[crimresearch]

So, you have no links to any facts, but think that dredging up an extreme example and demanding that I provide court cites for your strawman, isn't dishonest?

You've made the extreme assertions here, you provide the evidence.

And while you are at it...Grow up.

 

[username]

Then I asked for links to evidence either that such process had already happened, or that there was a court recognized right to smoke.

Let me know when you have some facts to review and discuss.

I wanted to respond to this part of your post seperately.

The court recognized right to smoke is that it is legal to smoke.

The courts acknowledge this in their absence of cases finding people guilty of smoking.

Think about the underlying issue here. We are taking employer hiring rights to an extreme. We are basically saying an employer can not only hire/fire anyone for any reason they want, but that they can also require employees to submit to *tests* to ensure they aren't engaged in the prohibitted activity. Legal activities.

Legal has to be emphasized. In the case of women, gays and minorites the courts have said the employer doesn't have the right to base hiring decisions on such factors. Why not? Because the right of the gay, female, or other minority to be treated equally with others trumps the right of the employer to discriminate.

Why should a smoker not have the same rights to be free of unreasonable discrimination as the butt boofers?

 

[username]

So, you have no links to any facts, but think that dredging up an extreme example and demanding that I provide court cites for your strawman, isn't dishonest?

You've made the extreme assertions here, you provide the evidence.

And while you are at it...Grow up.

Ok, so you have now twice insulted me while not adding anything to the discussion.

Discussion (with you) is over.

 

[Tony]

Ok, so you have now twice insulted me while not adding anything to the discussion.

Discussion (with you) is over.

Crimeresearch is trash, there's no need to care about his opinion.

As an aside, I think you make an interesting point with your anal sex analogy. You could also add the other high risk behaviors of playing football, lifting weights, driving a car, going outside in the air pollution, eating raw oysters, unprotected sex, playing pool, going to the beach, flying on a plane, I could go on and on, you get the point. If firing for engaging in high-risk behaviors like smoking is fair game, then it logically follows that firing for any high-risk behavior is fair game. In fact, since everything has an element of risk, you could get fired for anything other than sitting in one spot and doing nothing.

 

[username]

If firing for engaging in high-risk behaviors like smoking is fair game, then it logically follows that firing for any high-risk behavior is fair game. In fact, since everything has an element of risk, you could get fired for anything other than sitting in one spot and doing nothing.

Boy, am I glad that you can see the point I was trying to make. I always wonder if I am just incredibly unclear or what when I have problems with someone I am discussing matters with.

There is a fundamental trouble I have with the view of those that believe it is acceptable for an employer to make smoking a condition of employment.

Smoking is simply one of many, legal, private behaviors that are simply nobody's business. Whether I engage in anal sex, football or skydiving is none of your business and whether you engage in these activities is none of my business.

Allowing employers to require employees to submit to tests to determine if they are engaging in legal behaviors is to give way too much power to the employer.

I do support the employer being able to govern what takes place on his own property or what the employee does while on company time.

That is where the employer's rights end and the individuals begin. If I am not on the employer's time or property I want to know where the employer gets the right to to regulate my private, legal behavior or subject me to tests as a condition of employment.

Generally this kind of behavior would be viewed as unreasonable. It only becomes reasonable when done to smokers because there is a lot of intolerance toward smokers. If we did it to other people for other behaviors there would be public outrage.

 

[shanek]

First, there is rarely an equality of power in employment negotiations. An employment contract is a negotiation. For negotiations to be fair an equality of power needs to be present.

I disagree. In such an arrangement, both parties want something that the other one has. With the system in equilibrium, this will most certainly be an equality of "power." The ony way the system can get out of equilibrium (at least, for very long) is government intervention.

Second, I believe the role of government is to protect the rights of individuals. Individuals have a right to privacy in terms of searches of their home, body and personal effects.

But implicit in this is the ability to waive your rights. A right that cannot be waived is no right at all. By accepting employment there, you are accepting the conditions the employer is putting on you. If you don't like that, then either negotiate an employment contract that has more acceptable conditions to you or go elsewhere.

I simply don't see any valid reason for...

Our rights are not contingent on whether or not we have a "valid reason" for exercising them. Who decides what reasons are valid?

 

[shanek]

Actually, I don't think that employer sponsored health insurance as part of a benefit package is such a bad idea. Generally, your employer can get you on a group plan that gives you much more insurance for the same amount of money than the employee can generally get on his own.

Funny; every time I had such benefits, they always cost 2-3 times as much as I could get on my own. Of course, they covered things such as chiropractic...

 

[sackett]

Touching the OP

Weyco handles the billing for my health insurance company. I’m pleased to hear that they’re taking a hard-a$$ stand against smoking, and making it scary by firing smokers if they catch them.

Smokers will someday become outcasts, breeding only among themselves and dwindling into a small band of malformed wretches hacking and spitting their way to oblivion. Even Europeans may get wise eventually.

 

[shanek]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: You smoke? You're fired!

I get the impression I'm being baited, but wtf I'll answer anyway....

No, it's an honest question. Your post implied the latter.

If you're talking in a strict sense ie the "specifically" part: neither. For ex. it isn't SPECIFICALLY laid out anywhere (excluding maybe some obscure local law) that it's illegal to whack somebody's ear off, but clearly that's illegal under more general terms of assault or what have you.

Consider that assault includes things like cutting off ears. And also include the common law. What is your answer?

 

[Phrost]

Boy, am I glad that you can see the point I was trying to make. I always wonder if I am just incredibly unclear or what when I have problems with someone I am discussing matters with.

There is a fundamental trouble I have with the view of those that believe it is acceptable for an employer to make smoking a condition of employment.

Smoking is simply one of many, legal, private behaviors that are simply nobody's business. Whether I engage in anal sex, football or skydiving is none of your business and whether you engage in these activities is none of my business.

Allowing employers to require employees to submit to tests to determine if they are engaging in legal behaviors is to give way too much power to the employer.

I do support the employer being able to govern what takes place on his own property or what the employee does while on company time.

That is where the employer's rights end and the individuals begin. If I am not on the employer's time or property I want to know where the employer gets the right to to regulate my private, legal behavior or subject me to tests as a condition of employment.

Generally this kind of behavior would be viewed as unreasonable. It only becomes reasonable when done to smokers because there is a lot of intolerance toward smokers. If we did it to other people for other behaviors there would be public outrage.

That's all reasonable.

But the problem is that you're still taking away the freedom of the business owner to decide who they employ.

It's perfectly legal to crusade for the legalization of child pornography. But as a business owner, the activities of your employees outside of work has a direct effect on your success. If you discovered that a prominent child porn advocate was on your staff, do you really feel you should be forced to keep him? Or if you discovered his activism in part of the pre-employment screening, would you appreciate being forced to ignore it?

The problem is that those on your side of the argument are not concerned with the rights of the business owner, whatsoever.

 

[shanek]

I have the right to work for anyone I want,

If you can convince the person to hire you and keep you on.

Not really, it's his company, he's the boss. Since when are employees able to fired their bosses?

All the time. It's called "quitting."

No he doesn't. He can't choose not to hire me if I'm a black guy, he can't choose not to hire me because of my religion. He can't fire me for having kids, or going to the bathroom, getting married, reading certain books.

Actually, yes, he can. And since it doesn't initiate force, it's his natural right. Just because the law is infrigning on those rights doesn't mean you win the argument. You agreed to the terms of employment.

No, I don't. I want the harmless personal freedom of every citizen to be upheld.

Except, of course, the harmless personal freedom of employers to choose who they want to have work for them...

That's a lie.

No, it isn't. By forcing the employer to keep an employee he doesn't want, you are doing exactly that.

 

[Tony]

Re: Touching the OP

Weyco handles the billing for my health insurance company. I’m pleased to hear that they’re taking a hard-a$$ stand against smoking, and making it scary by firing smokers if they catch them.

Smokers will someday become outcasts, breeding only among themselves and dwindling into a small band of malformed wretches hacking and spitting their way to oblivion. Even Europeans may get wise eventually.

Nice rhetoric.

Weyco handles the billing for my health insurance company. I’m pleased to hear that they’re taking a hard-a$$ stand against ******, and making it scary by not hiring ****** if they catch them.

****** will someday become outcasts, breeding only among themselves and dwindling into a small band of malformed wretches hacking and spitting their way to oblivion. Even Spicks, wops, catholics, faggots, kykes and gooks may get wise eventually.

Edited by Darat: 

Edited for breach of Rule 8.

Even meant as satirising another Member’s position this post is not acceptable here (see your Member Agreement for further details), if you make any further similar posts it will result in further sanctions.

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: Darat

 

[sackett]

Re: Re: Touching the OP

Hey, Tony what have you got against spicks, wops, Catholics, faggots, kikes, and gooks? I'm talking about SMOKERS!

 

[shanek]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: You smoke? You're fired!

No it didn't.

Yes, it did. Read the preamble.

Our government leaders sat down and wrote the Constitution.

There were no "government leaders" then. There were 13 separate governments with 13 separate leaders.

This is at best semantical nit-picking,

No, it's not. It's the founding principles of this country. We have our rights due to nature; the only purpose of government is to secure these rights, and that is because the people have come together to form a government for that purpose. That's why government's just powers derive from the consent of the governed.

The way it was before, the King had all the rights, and he could give them or take them away as he chose. Our founders were opposed to that. Our government cannot take your rights, because rights don't come from the government. It can only infringe upon them.

And some rights WERE granted, and certainly not assumed to be in existance.....if they even existed at all. The rights of slaves and women's right to vote, for example.

The right to vote is completely different, as that would be meaningless without a government anyway. That's not at all what we're talking about.

 

[Nyarlathotep]

Funny; every time I had such benefits, they always cost 2-3 times as much as I could get on my own. Of course, they covered things such as chiropractic...

Well, I based what I was saying on what I have read on company benefit packages (generally how they are looking for ways to compensate employees with benefits where possible rather than cash because it is generally cheaper) and backed up by the fact that after getting annoyed with our work sponsored health plan and looking at dropping it in favor of private Chani and I found that the best deal we could get on our own would cost us roughly double what we curently paid for the same level of benefits. Maybe our insurance is extraordinarily generous but considering the company, I doubt it.

 

[shanek]

You want the totalitarian state. You want the employee to check his personal, constitution and human rights at the door.

No; he wants the employee to comply with the terms that he's voluntarily agreed to.

 

[shanek]

This is irrelevant. Employees are not property.

No; they are people who have voluntarily agreed to work for someone. If they don't like the conditions of doing so, they're free to go elsehwere. Why you fail to grasp this concept is beyond me.

 

[CFLarsen]

No; he wants the employee to comply with the terms that he's voluntarily agreed to.

But the terms are new, they are not something the employee voluntarily agreed to, when he said yes to the job.

 

[Tony]

All the time. It's called "quitting."

False analogy.

Actually, yes, he can. And since it doesn't initiate force, it's his natural right. Just because the law is infrigning on those rights doesn't mean you win the argument. You agreed to the terms of employment.

No, he can't. This is your support of feudalism seeping through in the guise of "natural rights".

Except, of course, the harmless personal freedom of employers to choose who they want to have work for them...

It's not harmless. You're position of allowing oppression in the guise of private power logically leads to social unrest and revolution.

No, it isn't. By forcing the employer to keep an employee he doesn't want, you are doing exactly that.

It is a lie. Only when you propagandistically break it down to the most vague of terms (as you've just done) does your position seem desirable. I'm talking about reality, not theory. It is wrong for an employer to fire a woman who refused to have sex with him. Applying your rational of this being merely "an employee he doesn't want" you skirt the issue for the sole purpose of buttressing your ideology. You are dishonest, and you care not for freedom beyond your ideals.

 

[shanek]

Liar. I've never called for the government to steal the property from the employer.

His business is his property. If you prevent him from doing what he wants on his own property, you are stealing from him. And don't give me any crap about how he doesn't own the employee; the employee is there of his own free will and volition, and can leave at any time he wants to.

The body is also property, so is the home. The owner of the workplace has no business dictating to the owner of the body and the home what goes on in the home or the body.

He isn't doing that. He's just deciding who he wants to freely associate with.

No, I'm not. This is a strawman. I'm calling for the government to do it's job and protect the personal rights of the people.

Except the right of free association, at least among emplyers.