Smoking your job away

When the Michigan insurance company, Weyco Inc. terminated 4 employees for off-duty smoking, I thought, here we go. The issue of when an employer can dictate and control what an employee does with their free time is a big one. On one hand, why should employers be able to dictate what an employee does when they are not on the clock? On the other, an employer, a free member of society, should be permitted to condition employment on whatever criteria it sees fit (so long as it does not amount to illegal discrimination).

What I missed in this debate, and what was pointed out yesterday in a piece on the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette were 2 points: Indiana, yes Indiana, has a statute that prohibits (of all things) employers taking action (like termination or changing benefits) against an employee for off-duty tobacco use (Ind Code 22-5-4-1), so Indiana employees can lite up in their free time without fear of retaliation. Now Indiana does not have many protections for employees. It is an “employment at will” state, meaning employers are generally free to terminate employees for any reason they see fit, and the only issue is whether the employee is entitled to unemployment benefits or not. Why Indiana chose to protect smokers in its limited employee rights provisions is beyond me.

I also missed Senate Bill 402 which would have taken out the protection for off-duty smokers. That bill that died in committee this year. The Gazette piece covers some of the issues involved in this debate and predicts that Indiana will revisit this issue in future legislative sessions. Employers, faced with increasing health insurance costs, are trying to take measures to control those costs, and covering smokers with health insurance is seen as an unnecessary expense. The article also points out that the other big public health threat, overeating, could become a candidate for concern when it comes to employee health insurance. Will their come a day when employers start firing people for eating junk food on their days off or failing to keep the pounds off?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 2nd, 2005 at 8:28 am and is filed under Local Items. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.