Employer ultimatum: Get off cigarettes or get out resumes
Michigan employer takes hard line on smoking
Is it concern for employees’ health or worry about the bottom line? Discrimination or concern for workers’ welfare? A Michigan medical benefits company has kicked up a firestorm over its zero-tolerance policy toward tobacco use. Employees at Weyco Inc. in Okemos, MI, are not just barred from using tobacco products at work — they’re banned from using them at all. And if they do — or refuse to be tested for tobacco use — they lose their jobs.
Weyco founder and CEO Howard Weyers says his company created the smoking ban out of a desire to contain rising health care costs and to protect employees from paying a price in higher deductibles because they smoke. He says he also wants his employees to be healthy; and smoking, Weyers adds, doesn’t fit in with that plan.
"Weyco’s mission is to help businesses improve employee health and cut costs with innovative benefit plans," he points out. "Weyco decided to take the lead by phasing in a tobacco-free employee policy over 15 months, with company-paid smoking-cessation assistance."
After that — the deadline was January — employees who still smoked on or off company time would be terminated. "It’s not about what people do at home," says Weyers. "It’s about the acceptance of personal responsibility by people we choose to employ."
Groundwork laid over period of years
Though Weyco employees were given 15 months to quit tobacco or find work elsewhere, the company started laying the groundwork for the smoking ban three years ago.
The tobacco-free policy has been an ongoing program — and part of the Lifestyle Challenge Program at Weyco Inc. — since 2003. In early 2003, Weyco stopped hiring anyone who admitted to using tobacco. The company offered assistance to employees, including smoking-cessation classes, acupuncture, and medication. In late 2003, smoking by employees was banned on company property. In 2004, employees who smoked were charged a $50 monthly "tobacco assessment" if they didn’t go to a smoking cessation class.
Employees were given 15 months, until January 2005, to quit smoking or quit working for Weyco. Of the 200 people employed by the company, Weyers says, 20 quit smoking, one resigned, and four were fired.
Weyers says the groundwork supporting his decision to enact the ban is there as well. "There’s no longer any question about the devastating effects of tobacco use on our society, or why it must be eliminated," Weyer explains. "Tobacco is a major killer and drain on health care resources. Michigan’s smoking-related health care costs amount to $2.65 billion a year."
And the cost to businesses, Weyers adds, is further justification. "Any private Michigan business organization has the right to protect itself from the enormous financial damage that tobacco users inflict upon society by destroying their own health," he says.
Controversial, but legal
Civil rights advocates don’t like Weyco’s hard line on smoking, saying it intrudes on employees’ privacy by dictating that they cannot engage in a legal activity outside business hours and off company property. But no legal challenge is expected to stand, according to a statement by the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, because Michigan’s laws protect employers’ rights to hire and fire for behaviors that are not specifically deemed protected from discrimination.
Michigan is among 21 states that have no "smoker’s rights" law, protecting smokers from discrimination. Michigan also is one of many states in which employers may hire and fire at will, for any reason not excluded by anti-discrimination laws, employment contracts, or union contracts.
In other words, Weyco could fire employees who smoke, ride motorcycles, or have red hair. Under federal law, employees cannot be fired or discriminated against due to religion, race, gender, marital status, or age. Michigan includes weight and height in that list, while other states do not deem weight, smoking, or other lifestyle issues grounds for discrimination.
"Smoking is not a civil right," says Weyers. "It’s just a poor personal choice. Employment is not a right, either."
Weyco is not the first company in the United States to use lifestyle choices as grounds for hiring or firing decisions. Airlines until recently enforced weight limits on flight attendants; other companies have dictated hairstyles or facial hair, limited at-work expression of certain political leanings, and dictated smoking and other behaviors on company property. Kimball Physics, a scientific instrument manufacturer in New Hampshire, has a policy of banning anyone who smells of tobacco from company grounds.
"Although the announcement of this policy by Weyco has generated a great deal of controversy, it’s far from the only company to single out smokers," says John F. Banzhaf III, JD, executive director and chief counsel of Washington, DC-based anti-smoking organization Action on Smoking and Health.
"Alaska Airlines asks prospective workers to pass a nicotine test. Union Pacific Railroad questions applicants about smoking. Kalamazoo Valley Community College as of this year isn’t hiring smokers anymore. CNN under Ted Turner had the policy, and many fire departments haven’t hired smokers for many years."
Michigan state Sen. Virg Bernero, responding to negative backlash following the Weyco firings, announced he plans to introduce a bill that would ban employers in his state from firing or refusing to hire workers for legal activities employees engage in on their own time that don’t interfere with their work.
Insurance savings for employers
Weyers says while insurance costs are not the primary reason for the smoking ban at his company, the rising cost of health insurance was one factor. "[Insurance] is darned expensive," he comments. Weyers charges that one reason for the increases in health insurance costs to employers is "self-destructive behavior by a small percentage of employees."
Typically, health insurance premiums are higher for smokers than they are for nonsmokers; how much higher depends on the policy, the insured person’s age and health, and other factors.
Of the 15-20 Weyco employees who used tobacco before the no-smoking policy was announced, "about a dozen" have stopped using tobacco, Weyers reports. "It’s not just about saving money," he says. "It’s about saving lives."
Weyco’s no-smoking policy is available at the company’s web site, www.weyco.com.
For more information, contact:
- Howard Weyers, President, Weyco Inc., 2370 Science Parkway, Okemos, MI 48864. Phone: (517) 349-7010.
- John F. Banzhaf III, JD, Executive Director and Chief Counsel, Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), 2013 H St. N.W., Washington, DC 20006. Phone: (202) 659-4310. Web site: www.ash.org.
A Michigan medical benefits company has kicked up a firestorm over its zero-tolerance policy toward tobacco use. Employees at Weyco Inc. in Okemos, MI, are not just barred from using tobacco products at work theyre banned from using them at all. And if they do or refuse to be tested for tobacco use they lose their jobs.
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