Should your job be able to fire you for smoking?

Question

Miracle-Gro has instituted a ban on employee smoking, and America's Next Top Model has done the same. Should businesses be able to fire employees for engaging in legal activities on their private time? PLEASE NOTE that I do not refer to activities which pose security risks or safety risks (i.e. drinking two hours before flying a plane). If possible, please state your job and whether or not bans exist which apply to your free time and legal activities.

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Answer 1

Need I remind people, as you have, that smoking is a LEGAL activity. No, employers should not have the right to fire employees for engaging in LEGAL activities on their own time. Yes, smoking is bad for you and for those you smoke around, but it is legal. Nobody can dispute that smoking is bad for you any longer. Therefore people who smoke, choose to do so knowing the consequenses to their health. That is their choice. Businesses should set up a smoking section outside the building to give smoking employees a place to go on their breaks. That way, they are out of the way of people who do not smoke or choose to be around smoke. People still have rights. It is almost funny to see people speak of human rights with a forked tongue while trampling someone elses human rights at the same time.

Having said all that, smokers need to be more courteous of non smokers because of the health risks. It is your choice to smoke, not theirs. Smokers need to move away from public entries to buildings and pick up their butts. At the same time, businesses should provide ash trays somewhere. If you own or run a business and do not provide an ash tray, don't gripe about the butts all over your sidewalks.

I am a Smoker
I am a Business Manager
I do not allow smoking inside the business
I do allow smoking outside the business
I ask smokers, along with myself, to move away from the entry to smoke out of courtesy to non-smokers.
I provide ash trays and trash cans outside for trash and butts.

Dont give me this insurance crap. Health insurance companies will find a reason to raise your premiums wether you have smokers in the group or not. They always do. We have a small group. We had no claims last year and our insurance carrier still raised our rates this year. We are shopping for a new carrier, but most of the insurance carriers are comparable in price.

Answer 2

This is all to reduced their expendures on insurance costs. They say that employees who smoke are less productive, call out more, and are greater risks of health concerns. The latter I'm sure is true, however the other two, that's up in the air. What about obese people? Or people who have internet addictions or porn addictions? Or who drink excessively once they get home? Does the company have the right to curtail those habits as well?

This country is dangerously close to snuffing out all of the freedoms we have. It seems that everyone is missing the point that the more you take away from us the more likely we are to rise against. Prohibition proved it in the 20's and if the government and employers continue to strip us of personal freedoms, what's the point of living in the Land of The Free and Home of the Brave? We need to stop letting everyone else decide what's best for us.

Every few months or so the so called authorities on health, economics and law release a correction of something that they insisted was true. Coffee was bad for you - but now it's ok to drink 3 cups a day and it's good for your liver. Eggs are bad for you, then it was oh oops nope they are good for you. I can come up with at least another five examples. They don't know anymore or any better than the rest of us do and for all intents and purposes, they are just guessing. There are TOO many factors in this world and you can't isolate all of them.

Bottom line - stay out of my bedroom, stay out of my home, keep your hands off my money and let me have at least SOMETHING to deal with life. It's not always pretty and sometimes you just need a little bit of help to make it through. A cigarette, a drink, sex, going out with friends, whatever it is - everyone has a vice. Tell me how it's any different than someone who pops a Prozac every day?

So that's a no.

Answer 3

Their argument is probably that the employer is paying for your health insurance, and if you smoke, you will require more health care, so to keep costs down, they are forbidding employees to smoke. While it makes some impersonal sense, I'm against it. The next step would be instituting weigh-ins for jobs (if you weigh more, you may use more health care) or forbidding you to participate in sports that are considered more dangerous, like rock-climbing or what-not.

I'm pretty sure smokers already pay a higher premium on their health insurance. That should be enough to make up the difference. What you do on your own time should stay private. Period.

I work at a community college, and while smoking is not allowed in the buildings or around all the walk-ways, there are still areas outside that smokers can go. As far as I know, they don't limit our legal activities on our free time.

Answer 4

Most states, you can be fired for any reason, unless it is specifically protected by law. So if an employer wants to fire you for smoking, then that is certainly legal. I take issue with your statement about what people do "on their private time." I know a LOT of smokers, and they most certainly do a LOT of smoking on COMPANY time. I imagine that is the real issue, not whether these people are smoking at home. You also have to factor in costs of health and life insurance, which is always higher for smokers (should it be? that's another debate).

Answer 5

I say yes, they should be able to! Let me explain my stand here. If you have a contract that you sign and taking a job also is a contract, whatever the employer has set forth in all the documents that you sign, you are legally bound to. So, if the employer says you will not be a smoker and work in his business, than yes, he can.

I am a receptionist for an elderly rest home and retirement village. There are currently no bans on our free time. We are bound by a morals code, however and I wouldn't even think of violating it.

Answer 6

Well, I can see it from the company's point of view that maybe they don't like their employees reeking of smoke, or maybe smokers take more sick days statistically. And yeah, there's the health insurance issue. But then where does it end? Are they going to ban the eating of limburger cheese? Force their employees to go to the gym at least 3 times a week so they won't be fat and hypertensive?

Answer 7

I don't think an employer has the right to say you can't smoke on your own time. As long as a person abides with non smoking rules at their place of employment, seriously, what right do they have? That's like saying you can't go out to a restaurant with your husband and have a mixed drink isn't it? No ban exists at my job concerning what I do with my free time.

Answer 8

Geez thats ridiculous!!!! What are these companies turning Communist on us, trying to dictate what we can and can't do on our free time. I don't smoke, but come on this is crazy. So when you smoke you get fired , but u go can go home and drink yourself to oblivion!!! Theres doctors that smoke, imagaine if that rule went into an effect???? Hmmmmm I wonder!

Answer 9

Answer: They can fire you at will or for any reason that's not illegal. Smoking isn't illegal but the law does not prohibit employers who want to get rid of health risks.

Answer 10

yes, i have no problem with it. the smoke on the job, taking smoke break every 45 minutes. also because of health problems, they raise the pay out from insurance policies. which raises the cost for all others in the plan. people with other health problems get turned down or let go. why are smokers special?