What habits should employers be able to discriminate on?

Great Debates
1

This article in the Boston Globe discusses a company that explicitly states that they do not hire smokers, even if they do not smoke at work.

Relevant bits:

Although I don’t think that any reasonable person is going to say that smoking is good for you, I find this trend a bit disturbing. Smokers might have poorer general health than non-smokers, but what about any number of things that lend themselves to poorer health such as alcoholism, drug addiction, or morbid obesity? What about diseases such as HIV or diabetes?

I’ve heard this called “health profiling” before. What say you, Teeming Millions? Prudent company policy or yet another step towards loss of privacy and rights?

2

Funny. I was thinking about this the other day and considered starting a thread. Now, here it is.

Here are my thoughts with no evidence to back any of it up…

Our firm justy hired a smoking legal assistant. She needs to take breaks and leave the office now and then to smoke. What if we needed a rush document and she was suffering a nic-fit? This could present risks that a non-smoker might not present.

You don’t have a right to a job, and there is nothing particularly intrusive about asking whether someone smokes (as opposed to asking whether someone intends to have a baby, for example). Smoking can have an impact on performance. AFAIK, smoking does not qualify as a “disability” worthy of legal protection.

The state should pass laws giving employers and express right to ask about smoking habits and allowing employers to discriminate against candidates on that basis. The state should simultaneously release a study showing that smokers tend to take more breaks and increase health insurance costs. Health insurance providers should give discounts to “smoke-free” employers.

If employers started doing this, maybe the health of the population will increase as people stop smoking to save their jobs.

3

Well, I don’t know about smoking. I would think the obvious might be, say people who don’t bathe, people who pick their noses constantly, that sort of thing.

With things like diseases and drug addictions-I guess it would depend on the type of job?

4

I think employers should have the right to discriminate as much as they want. And I say this as someone who has DEFINITELY been turned down for jobs because I’m fat, and I have been fired once because I’m a Christian.

Why?

If someone goes through the time, trouble, and hassle to set up a business, they should be able to choose who works there.

Now watch this:

Say all anti-discrimination laws are repealed. What business owner in their right mind would discriminate?

Let’s say you’re oh … black. Are you gonna shop at a store that will not hire anybody black under any circumstances? Didn’t think so.

Ditto if you’re Chinese, Christian, Jewish, Hispanic, etc etc.

Get rid of the laws and let these morons who would only hire their “own kind” hang themselves with their own rope :slight_smile:

5

My vote is for prudent company policy. If you’ve ever tried to operate a business you know how precarious your situation is, even if you are well financed and knowledgable in your field. Everything that hinders your business in however small a way is costly, and such issues as overall health of employees are of enormous importance to the ultimate health of your business.

All employers discriminate, which is to say “choose” whom they will hire. They choose to employ people who not only will perform their duties well, but who will not cost the company money because of health problems down the line. The choices they make may seem arbitrary and unfair, especially if you are the one “profiled” out of a possible job, but I believe they are completely legitimate. I say this as someone who has been discriminated against (never admitted to, of course) because of age and obesity. I hated it, and was angry at the time. But on reflection, I realize that older people have more health problems than younger ones, and obesity only adds to them.

These expected health problems are expensive to an employer over time, in lost productivity and medical insurance costs. The employer has the right, IMHO, to “profile” people for characteristics that might have a negative effect on his/her business.

That said, I still support existing laws against racial and sex discrimination. I’m not so sure about age, though, for reasons just given, and I would amend the Americans with Disabilities Act to allow a more flexible, case-by-case treatment. In some cases it (the ADA) entirely takes away an employer’s right to make “prudent company policy.” But that’s for another thread.

6

I used to work as a server in a restaurant, and the non-smokers were clearly more productive than the smokers. The smokers would often waste time going for a cigarette, particularly during the busiest portion of the day when their stress was the highest (which was, ironically, the time of day when there was the least amount of time to waste). In cases like that – where bad habits have a negative effect on job performance – I believe that employers should be able to discriminate against potential employees. However, I do not believe that a blanket “no smokers, ever” policy should be used, as some smokers can resist smoking while on the job.

7

W_V Woman-you were fired because you were Christian?

What exactly happened?

8

[hijack]

Guinastasia, here’s the story in a nutshell.

I was working for an independent State Farm rep, part time, doing office grunt work. When he hired me, he told me to take my office and make it my own … put up pictures, etc. I was allowed to have a radio, which I kept on a Christian station. (We have a REALLY good Christian radio station here.) Bossman was cool with this as long as I didn’t play it too loud.

One day my boss called me into my office to tell me how wonderful I was, and how the plan was to keep me as a temp until October, then he would hire me as his employee. This was because State Farm HQ reimburses their new agents (which he was) for a lot of stuff their first year, and apparently HQ was paying all of his bills for me. Basically, he wanted me to be a temp as long as possible, so he wouldn’t have to pay for me (temp agencies are expensive). What I’m trying to say is that on this particular day, a Friday, he had long term plans for keeping me there.

The next week, to decorate my office, I brought in a poster entitled “Everything I Ever Needed to Know I Learned from the Bible” and put it on the wall. It didn’t even MENTION Jesus, it was basically paraphrases of verses from Proverbs: stuff like “Don’t embarass your parents,” and “keep your word,” – stuff like that. The stuff it said was just general wisdom that you can find in any belief system.

I came in the next day and found my poster on my desk, taken down. I kept it down until I could talk to my boss. He told me he had taken it down because “we don’t want people to get offended.”

Bear in mind my office was in a place where NO customers would ever see that poster, unless they passed by my office to go pee, which rarely happened. Plus bear in mind that WV is a pretty conservative little place. You can’t throw a rock without hitting a church … so it’s not like the chances were great that, say, a raving atheist was going to walk in, see it and withdraw their business.

But hey … it’s his office, and he had the right to dictate what was on the walls. No problem. I took it home and thought nothing else of it.

That Friday, he calls me into his office and fires me. I “just wasn’t hearing him,” he said.

This is the part where I remind you that the previous Friday, he was singing my praises.

There was another Christian that worked there, but she was completely mum on the subject. I guess I was just too controversial for his world.

9

First of all, it is legal to be fired for being Christian, if the employee behaved in a fashion that the employer considers obnoxious; for example, if the employee was actively proselytizing other employees, or leaving religious materials in public areas, the employer is justified in firing this person. It’s not the belief that’s being punished, it’s the behavior. Witnessing in the workplace can lead to a harassment claim against the employer, and no employer is anxious to have to defend one of those. In fact, several people at my old job were threatened with termination for religious e-mails and magazines left in the breakroom. Others had complained and management felt that it might open up a harassment claim at worst, and at best, an equal-opportunity claim. And when there’re e-mails involved, and the management knows about it, such a claim would be virtually indefensible from a legal standpoint.

There are a number of conditions that will probably not land you that job. Smoking, for one. Obesity is another. It has to do with risk management. Smokers get sick more often, take more and longer breaks, and incur more health-insurance claims. The obese also get sick more, sustain health problems like degenerative joint problems, chronic cardiovascular disease, and some severely obese people require special furniture designed for their size. Also, if they sustain a workplace injury, it’s often more severe than a person of normal weight would sustain.

Do I think an employer would be justified in discriminating against these people? Depends. I don’t want to work next to someone who smells like an ashtray, and I wouldn’t want to risk problems from another employee who may have asthma or allergies who isn’t reacting to the smoker well. On the other hand, if the potential employee is competent and otherwise is a good match, then we might get around the smoking thing.

Same for obesity. If the person can do the job, then fine. If the job is very physical (and even some office jobs come in here), then probably not. But if it’s not, then I don’t have a problem with it.

As for the religious thing, I think that religion has no place in the workplace. What you do on the weekends is no affair of mine, but I also expect that what I do on the weekends is no affair of yours, either. If employees want to meet for lunch at a restaurant to have a Bible study, then there’s nothing I can do to prevent it, but the minute the church enters the office, there is a lot that I can do to prevent it, and I have been known to do just that.

Robin

10

IIRC I ran across a company who went a different route to lower the number of smokers on the payroll.
They offered a a yearly bonus if you did not smoke.

The time lost because of smoke breaks are small. Most places are required to give employees a break when they work a set number of hours.

I have yet to run across a problem with me smoking and my job.
It is no different for me than taking a long plan ride. Nicorette gum or the patch works to keep the nic-fits away.

I can understand companies desire to hire the best capable empoyees possible. Smokers do statistically take more sick days than non-smokers.
Yet, where is the line drawn?
If you start looking to profile people based on life style you can always find something.
(hypothetical examples that may or may not be linked to facts)
People who own pets are healther than non-pet owners…
Screen for diabetes?
Married men are less risk for car accidents and live longer than a single male.
People who excersice life better healthier lives than those who do not.
People who eat healthy as opposed to fast food junkies?

where is an acceptable place to draw the line?

11

—I think employers should have the right to discriminate as much as they want.—

As uncomfortable as this position makes me, I am currently leaning on the side of saying that it is right. I can’t think of a good moral reason why someone who starts a bussiness is obligated to give jobs, or sell products, to anyone in particular. Steven Lansberg’s argument, has, at least for the time being, convinced me.

Consider this variation on his argument: a person starts a dry cleaning bussiness. They then refuse to serve you, because you are of a minority (or majority!) that they don’t like.

You argue that they are violating your moral or civil liberties. But does that make any sense? Think about it: if there were some compelling moral reason that you deserve to be served dry cleaning services, then everyone who is not in bussiness as a dry cleaner, including Bob the hobo down the street, would be just as guilty of not dry cleaning your clothes as the bigoted dry cleaners. That’s what fairness dictates. The fact that the dry cleaner owners chose to spend their savings opening a bussiness, as opposed to buying McDonalds food for themselves, should not make them any more liable to your demands for dry cleaning.

Indeed, by opening their dry cleaning bussiness, the owners did not hurt you any. In fact, by adding to the competition, they’ve probably slightly reduced the price of dry cleaning at the place you’ll then have to take you bussiness to.

Now, Bob the hobo hasn’t even done THAT much good for you, and yet for some reason people consider HIS failure to sell dry cleaning services to you perfectly acceptable, while those same people want to pass laws penalizing the dry clean shop owners.

Furthermore, the dry cleaning owners are already paying for their choice: they don’t get your bussiness, and their competitors do. Likewise, if people discriminate against, say a Christian, then they pay the price of losing (again, quite possibly to their own competition) an otherwise good worker to someone less offendable.

12

Apos
It’s not quite that simple. There is a difference between saying that everyone has a duty to do your dry cleaning and saying that no one has a right to discriminatorily refuse to do your dry cleaning.

There are several competing theories of justice but I believe all of them, including Nozick’s (one of the most minimalist) would conclude that, at least in society as it is today, discriminating against people on the basis of, for example, race is unjust.

The ethics of discriminating against people on the basis of voluntary conduct is a more complicated issue. Ultimately, it comes down to a question of utility. To take an extreme example, one can’t, at least in the U.S., generally discriminate on the basis of religion. Moreover, a business is required to make reasonable accommodation. So, for example, if you are an orthodox Jew, the employer should not schedule you to work on the Sabbath.

Suppose, on the other hand, you, as a matter of personal ethics, refuse to get out of bed before noon. It would be perfectly legitimate for an employer to discriminate against you on this basis. The U.S. has decided that, on balance, society is better off making reasonable accommodation for religion. There is less utility in sleeping late, so this activity isn’t protected at the federal level and whether or not to discriminate against it is left to the individual employer to decide. Some states, I believe, drawn the line in different places and have more extensive protection. Though not, so far as I know, for sleeping in.

The U.S. has decided that relatively few areas of voluntary conduct deserve such protection. The general rule is that an employer may discriminate for any reason or even no reason but not for an illegal reason. In the case of smoking, I’d have to say that it would be legal for an employer to discriminate. Nor do I see any moral element in such discrimination at all. It’s simply a question of utility.

13

—There is a difference between saying that everyone has a duty to do your dry cleaning and saying that no one has a right to discriminatorily refuse to do your dry cleaning.—

Very well: I discriminatorily refuse to do you dry cleaning. Your race and gender (whatever they are) disgust me. So, instead of starting a dry cleaning bussiness that you could patronize with my resources, I will wastefully spend my resources on buying beer (which is wasteful because I happen to hate it).

The point is: what is it about me starting a bussiness that obligates me to sell to you, when I had no such obligation to begin with?

Another example along similar lines: why are bussiness owners not allowed to discriminate in their hiring, but I can discriminate in my job searches? Where is the commensurability in that? Me choosing to work for someone is a mutual contract. Why is one party to that contract subject to restrictions, and the other party is not?
For that matter, how come potential customers who refuse to shop at a particular store aren’t forced to prove that their decision wasn’t based on racial bias? Where is the fairness in penalizing racist shop owners, but not racist shoppers?

Or look at landlords and tenants. A white racist landlord cannot deny residence to black tenants. But a white racist tenant CAN refuse to rent from a black landlord. That’s an utterly arbitrary law.

Or, why can I use race as a criteria when choosing a wife, but not an employee?

—There are several competing theories of justice but I believe all of them, including Nozick’s (one of the most minimalist) would conclude that, at least in society as it is today, discriminating against people on the basis of, for example, race is unjust.—

I agree that it is wrong morally. But that’s not far enough to say that it is unjust. Both of us would like to see less racists. But why does that desire lead to the conclusion that the government have to right to tell people how to spend my resources in one instance that otherwise they would not?

Look: take it from even a Nozikian view: Whether I start the dry cleaning bussiness or not, I control the exact same allocation of resources. Perhaps the public deserves some share of my resources because of the social contract.
But unless you have an EXTRA claim on my resources when I spend them buying beer, or racist propaganda, I cannot see how you have a claim on them when I use them to start a racist bussiness. Either way, these are just usages of the same resources, and I am in EVERY case not using them in a way that benefits you (perhaps for racist reasons, perhaps not).

I used to take it for granted that anti-discrimination laws in the private sector made sense. But habit is not a good reason.

14

In WV_Woman’s example though, she had already complied with the directive to take her poster down.

15

I hadn’t seen WV_Woman’s post; I was writing mine when she posted.

Robin

16

Okay, having read WV_Woman’s follow-up, I’ve got some comments.

I’m thinking that while the agent may have been fine with the radio station and the poster, his superior (or someone else affiliated with State Farm) wasn’t. If he had no problem with it on one day, but he did on the next, it’s a safe guess someone else had a problem with it and instructed him to let you go. As a temp (and I am currently temping, so I am speaking from experience) you have basically zero rights as compared to a regular employee. You can be let go because they don’t like your hair.

As I see it, your right to exercise your religion stops at my eyes and ears. It’s a simple matter of respect for those you work with. I have complained at various workplaces about people playing Christian radio (if you’ve got headphones, I can’t hear what you’re playing, so I don’t care), displaying religious posters in the breakroom or in other public areas, religious e-mails sent out, and so forth. While I may seem antagonistic about the issue of religion, I am quite frankly sick and tired of those who would use religion to encroach on my personal space and my private life. In essence, there is a time and a place for everything, and the time and place for religion is not at work.

Robin

17

Some years ago I worked for a major bank. Due to staff shortages I quite often had to help cover the phones.
Of course almost every phone call was about why we had bounced a cheque, or refused a loan, etc.
We used to get shouted at some 15 or so times a day.
Once in the morning, and once in the afternoon, I would take five minutes for a ciggy break. It would calm me down after a stressful call, and I’d be able to go back to answering inane questions from the Evil General Public.
A lot of the other people on the phones that didn’t smoke would quite often end up having screaming fits with customers, and then have to sit for a half hour in the rest room, crying about it.
So in that case, I was a damn site more productive and professional then most of the non smokers.

Also acording to UK Health and Safety Regulations you need to take breaks if you’re working with VDU equiptment. What difference does it make if I use my break to smoke instead of make tea?

These days if I’m feeling at a creative low, I go sit in the garden, have a ciggy, and think. I generally come back with a couple of new ideas.

I like smoking, I enjoy it. To hell with you if you won’t employ me because of it, I don’t wanna work for you anyway! so nyah!

18

I don’t have a problem with employers discriminating for most any habits, as long as the habits have an effect at work: for example, the guy who plays football every morning and comes to work smelling like sweat, the smoker who smells like cigarettes and leaves work to have a smoke, or the SNL character who calls everyone “Dave-o-rama!”

But if your habit has no bearing on your appearance or performance at work, and can only be detected by a questionnaire or urine test, it’s none of your employer’s business.

19

Is it ok for me to only employ smokers? Or discriminate against non-smokers?

I find smokers to be more sociable, less neurotic, less likely to whinge, etc.etc.

20

Well, if you offer some reasonable explanation for why smokers would generally be more sociable, less neurotic and less whiny, then you might have a case. Otherwise, I suspect that you’d be violating some sort of labor statute – or setting a precedent for a new one.