A Company's Threat:
Quit Smoking or Leave.

By Ilan Brat

Scotts Miracle-Gro Co. is taking its campaign to stamp out smoking among its workers to an unusual length: It's threatening to fire smokers beginning next fall.

The threat represents the latest attempt by an employer to try to reduce health-care costs by targeting smokers. In January, four employees at Weyco Inc., a small medical-benefits administrator in Okemos, Mich., lost their jobs after they refused to be tested for tobacco use. Scotts, which has 5,300 U.S. workers, is one of the largest companies to have put an outright ban on smoking even off the job.

With medical expenses rising, corporations are increasingly focusing on the employees who they believe account for the majority of health-care costs. Some companies have tried to lower the number of smokers in their work force by offering employees money and counseling help to quit smoking. In April, Humana Inc., a Louisville, Ky., health insurer, asked its employees if they had used tobacco in the previous 12 months. Those who said they hadn't got a $5 bonus in their paychecks each pay period. General Mills Inc. imposes a $20 a month surcharge on the health benefits of smokers.

Weyco, the medical-benefits administrator, announced a tobacco-free policy in Sept. 2003. It used a device similar to a breathalyzer to test for tobacco use. In January 2005, four of its 190 employees chose not to take the test and were forced to leave.

Scotts offers to pay for smoking-cessation programs and products. But the October ultimatum "is way over the top by today's standards," said Helen Darling, president of the National Business Group on Health, a coalition of major corporations. "Most employers are still in the mode of 'You've got to have positive incentives.' "

Firing workers who won't stop smoking is illegal in the 30 states that have laws protecting smokers, according to the National Workrights Institute, a not-for-profit organization that focuses on human rights in the workplace. But elsewhere, unless workers fall in one of a few protected classifications defined by state and federal laws, employers have more leeway.

Some lawyers said Scotts could be vulnerable to disability challenges if it fires people who smoke. "Once you start regulating outside conduct, the question is where do you stop?" says Marvin Gittler, an employment-law specialist and managing partner with Asher, Gittler, Greenfield & D'Alba Ltd. in Chicago.

Smokers who are "really trying" to quit, even after the deadline, won't have to worry, allows Jim Hagedorn, Scotts' chief executive. "If you work with us, and we know you're working with us, I don't think you're going to end up getting fired."

Still, Scotts stresses that it expects employees to make a good-faith effort to improve their health. Scotts estimates that about 30% of its workers smoke.

Next October, the Marysville, Ohio, company said it will begin randomly testing about 20% of its work force nationwide where it is legal to do so. (Ohio is among the states that don't have specific smoker-protection laws.) The company says it hasn't worked out the details of how to test employees. Workers found to be still smoking or using other tobacco products habitually could be fired, Scotts says, as long as they work in states where such termination is legal. In states that do have smoker-protection laws, employees who are on the company's medical plan could see their health-care premiums become "substantially higher," though details aren't final yet, the company adds.

The tobacco initiative is part of a broad wellness program that includes a $5 million fitness gym and health clinic opened last month near the company's headquarters. Employees on the company's medical plan will have free access in the clinic to a physician, nurse practitioners, diet and fitness experts and a pharmacy with generic drugs.

In return, every year employees will face a strict requirement: Take a health assessment through a program affiliated with medical-information Web site WebMD Health Corp. -- or pay $40 extra a month in health-care costs. The health assessment starts with a form to be filled out online. Then, a "health coach" contacts the employee and arranges a treatment regimen for any health issues. The employee must follow through with the recommendations or pay higher premiums, though the exact amount hasn't been worked out yet.

The wellness program is administered by Whole Health Management Inc., a Cleveland company. Whole Health Management also works with Continental Airlines, Sprint Nextel and Nissan, among others.

Scotts' Mr. Hagedorn said he has "gotten pretty religious" about his employees' health recently. Last year, the company abolished smoking from its corporate campus, and the company cafeteria has cut down on fried food, instead offering up baked salmon and other fish. Vending machines dispense more "granola stuff," he said. By company mandate, employees who leave work during the work day for the gym won't be penalized.

Mr. Hagedorn, 50 years old, once smoked two packs of cigarettes a day but quit 20 years ago after his mother died of lung cancer. He said he understands how difficult it is to quit smoking but also how important it is. "Are we going to stand by and watch our people get sick? The answer is no," he said. "Success here is not firing anybody."

Linda Sutkin, a 31-year employee of the lawn and gardening-products company who works in customer service, won't have that worry. After a company-sponsored smoking-cessation program and Zyban, a medication to help quit, the 50-year-old smoked her last cigarette in January 2004. She misses the camaraderie of smoking with friends on breaks but is glad she quit.

Other smokers at headquarters are concerned about the company's October deadline, she says. "The consensus is like, is this the end or is it going to lead to something else?" she says. "Are they going to watch what we eat?"

Also visit: Best Way To Quit Smoking.

Quit Smoking News.

Cigarette Smoking Is Growing Hazardous To Careers In Business

Every morning, as soon as he gets to work, a Johnson & Johnson manager makes a beeline for the bathroom. He gargles with mouthwash and downs mints. Then, to mask any lingering odor, he douses his face and hands with skin cream.

But he still worries that he will be reprimanded or passed over for a promotion if his boss ever learns that his closet vice is cigarette smoking.

"I've become almost like a junkie, sneaking around as if I take illegal drugs," says the manager, who works at Johnson & Johnson headquarters in New Brunswick, N.J. "In a {corporate} culture like ours, where everyone is looking good and smelling good, the last thing you do is stick a cigarette in your mouth."

In corporate America, cigarette smoking is becoming hazardous to careers. Increasingly, smokers express anxiety that their prospects for getting hired and promoted are being stunted by their habit. Many of them fear they face both covert and overt discrimination in the workplace.

Until now, few companies have explicitly refused to hire smokers or have fired them outright for lighting up on the job. But evidence indicates that the undercurrent of employer prejudice against smokers is growing stronger. Smokers feel especially vulnerable at companies where smoking restrictions are already in force or where top executives don't smoke. They worry that, at the very least, it will be harder for them to climb the career ladder than for nonsmokers.

Barbara Hackman Franklin, a corporate director on several boards including those of Westinghouse Electric Corp., Dow Chemical Co., Black & Decker Corp. and Aetna Life & Casualty Co., says many companies have adopted an unwritten rule: "If you want to advance, don't smoke."

Indeed, in the past five years, smoking has gone from being a socially acceptable practice to one that is increasingly seen as a character defect indicating weakness and lack of self-discipline. "The cocaine abuser, the drunk at a party -- and the person who smokes next door -- are all viewed with the same generalized distaste," contends Robert Rosner, the executive director of the Smoking Policy Institute, which helps companies establish smoking restrictions.

Given such attitudes, many smokers are trying, with various degrees of success, to kick the habit. Among those in corporate America who continue to puff, many say they no longer feel like one of the guys. William L. Newkirk, the vice president of public relations at Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., quit smoking briefly to please his chairman, who led a nonsmoking crusade. Now back to his several-pack-a-day habit, Mr. Newkirk acknowledges that he feels "more and more like a pariah."

Some bosses make no secret of their bias. Recently, Ralston Purina Co.'s chairman, William Stiritz, delivered a tongue-lashing to some cigar-smoking senior executives about their "nasty" habit and lack of respect for others. The managers have since reformed their ways -- at least at work -- but word of Mr. Stiritz's displeasure traveled quickly throughout the company.

"Given the attitude of the top echelon at Ralston Purina, smoking is an impediment to climbing the corporate ladder," says W. Edwin Magee, the corporate medical director, who has tried to help some fast-track managers quit. "A number of young executives trying to climb have come to me and said, 'When you know your boss doesn't smoke and doesn't like it, it's a strong reason not to.'"

Smokers are feeling the heat because companies are taking a harder line on such issues as productivity, rising medical costs and the effects of passive smoke. Although there are conflicting claims about whether smokers cost employers more in terms of higher insurance rates and absenteeism, companies often cite such concerns to justify restrictive smoking policies. In addition, new state and local ordinances and employee complaints put significant pressure on many companies.

Last year, a survey of 660 companies by the Bureau of National Affairs Inc., a Washington-based research group, found that 36% of employers had adopted restrictive policies on smoking and an additional 22% were studying them.

A Wall Street Journal/NBC News survey conducted between April 12 and April 14 shows that tolerance for smoking is evaporating. Two-thirds of the 1,011 nonsmokers polled said they are more likely to think of their rights as nonsmokers than five years ago. More than half of the nonsmokers said cigarette smoke in the workplace bothers them.

Of the 462 smokers polled, 40% said they get more complaints about their smoking from fellow workers than they got five years ago. And two-thirds of the entire employee sampling said they approve of laws that restrict smoking in the workplace and other public places.

But not all smokers are under fire. In certain industries, certain parts of the country or certain companies where the top brass smoke, the habit is apt to be condoned, even encouraged. Signs at the headquarters of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. in Winston-Salem, N.C., proclaim, "Thank you for smoking." Brown-Forman Inc., the nation's largest distiller, terms smoking a "non-issue." Says Russell C. Buzby, the company's executive director of human resources: "It's just good manners in corporate life to have as few rules as possible."

Even at companies where smoking is restricted, most executives maintain in public that cigarettes aren't a factor in evaluating potential or current employees. "We're promoting people for their ability to think, for their ability to make judgments and decisions," says John W. Teets, the chief executive officer of Greyhound Corp., which instituted a companywide smoking ban last year. "Smoking isn't a detriment to being promoted."

Where it does exist, discrimination against smokers is hard to prove. Often, it is the result of an individual manager's bias -- typically subconscious -- rather than an explicit corporate policy. Either way, few people want to talk about it.

"Two of my corporate clients have told me in great confidence that they have been discriminating against smokers," says John Fox, an employment and labor lawyer based in Washington, D.C. "But they are afraid to discuss it openly because no one knows what the law is, and there is a great liability attached to wrongful discharge."

Mr. Fox says one client reduced its work force by selecting smokers to dismiss, while the other refused to promote and transfer smokers to one of its units. In neither case were the smokers informed that they were being penalized because of their habit.

Another reason for the secrecy is that discrimination against smokers also carries with it the implication of race and sex discrimination. Unpublished research collected in 1985 by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services shows that 40.7% of black males over age 20 smoke, while only 32.3% of such white males do. According to the same data, 27.7% of all white females smoke, compared with 32% of all black females. In the 20- to 24-year-old age category, 33.1% of white women smoke -- a figure that is significantly above that of black or white males or black females in the same age group.

Thus, the tobacco industry, particularly Philip Morris Cos., and some civil-rights organizations argue that cigarettes could be used as a weapon against blacks and young women, since those groups are more apt to smoke than white males. "Any kind of smoking restrictions could have a disproportionate impact on women and blacks," contends Robert W. Ethridge, assistant vice president for equal opportunity at Emory University.

Mr. Ethridge, who also is the president of the American Association of Affirmative Action, a group of 1,300 affirmative-action officers, argues that segregated office assignments could create a "back of the bus" mentality. Such practices risk cutting off blacks and women from their supervisors and undermining their chances for increased compensation and promotion, he says. But because the restrictions are new, he adds, "We may not see the true impact until a couple of years from now."

As the on-the-job restrictions and penalties have mounted, concerned smokers like the Johnson & Johnson closet-puffing manager have increasingly taken to hiding their habits. Some other examples:

-- Clest Lanier, a 39-year-old personnel assistant for the Farm Credit Banks of Louisville, Ky., typically smokes only at lunchtime, when her office is empty, or in the bathroom. As a black and a woman, she contends she already has two strikes against her. "Cigarettes could be the third strike," she says.

-- Not long ago, a chain-smoking advertising copywriter spent several hours in a no-smoking conference room at Campbell Soup Co. in Camden, N.J., and surreptitiously lit a cigarette. When someone walked in the door, he tried to make his smoke disappear by crouching down and exhaling into a desk drawer.

-- Until last year when a smoking ban went into effect at Rainier Bancorporation in Seattle, C. Bruce Emry, vice president of communications, used to go through 2 1/2 packs of cigarettes a day. But he never smoked in his superiors' offices. "There was a feeling in the back of my mind that it might count against me," he explains.

-- I.T. "Tex" Corley, vice president for finance at Mesa Limited Partnership in Dallas, quit two months ago. Before then, he says, he would smoke in front of his boss, a former smoker, in "real social" situations. But he drew the line when it came to work or travel. In meetings with his superior, Mr. Corley wouldn't dream of saying he needed a cigarette break. His excuse for absenting himself: "I have to make a phone call."

Smokers' various subterfuges, in many cases, are necessitated by very real threats. At a company's board meeting several months ago, Ms. Hackman Franklin, the corporate director, says talk turned to candidates in line for some top executive jobs. An upper-level manager was hailed as a "real star of his generation." But then, Ms. Hackman Franklin recalls, a director interrupted with, "Wait a minute. He's a little overweight, and he's a smoker. He's always got a cigarette in his mouth." Others chimed in, she says, raising questions about "his longevity and his ability to stay the course." The enthusiastic discussion of the up-and-comer petered out.

Rodger C. Taylor, a product manager at Fellowes Manufacturing Co. of Itasca, Ill., freely admits he wouldn't hire a smoker even though his company has no such official policy. Although he has yet to reject a smoker, he says, "I look upon smokers as being weak and not being at the same level of intelligence as I am. At some point, their progression up the career ladder will be stopped because, to me, they're slobs."

Similarly, Provident Indemnity Life Insurance Co.'s president, James Hellauer, recently interviewed a job candidate who was also a friend -- and a heavy smoker. But Mr. Hellauer, who has banned smoking at his Norristown, Pa., company, says he didn't give his buddy the job, in part because of his negative feelings about "nicotine fingers" and "reeking" clothes.

Another big problem for career-conscious smokers is that it is getting harder for them to look like team players. Over a year ago, the Johnson & Johnson manager attended a meeting where one nonsmoking executive devastated a cigarette-smoking rival by complaining vociferously when he pulled out his matches. "He {the nonsmoker} managed to make him {the smoker} look like a jerk without ever having to attack his work," the manager recalls.

At some companies, the nonconformity of smokers is made all the more obvious because they can puff only in segregated areas. For example, at Fellowes Manufacturing, employees have to light up outside at a loading dock, amid the stench of diesel fumes. Says Gina Canale, a purchasing assistant at the company: "We feel degraded, isolated and like outcasts."

In extreme cases, smokers can get fired. In January, Chicago-based USG Corp. said it would no longer hire smokers at nine mineral-fiber manufacturing plants and told its 1,300 employees at those plants that they must stop smoking or lose their jobs. In an attempt to minimize health threats and to reduce worker-compensation costs, USG's ban will apply to both work and home. The company will conduct periodic lung tests to monitor any changes in the employees' health status. (Thus far, USG has banned smoking in the workplace, but it hasn't yet introduced the nosmoking-at-home phase.)

Last December, Edelburg Trenkler, a catering supervisor at the Penrose Hospital in Colorado Springs, Colo., lost her job. In her termination letter, hospital officials cited the employee's unsatisfactory performance, missed meetings and "rude" behavior.

But Ms. Trenkler's bosses also disclosed to her another reason for her discharge: On National Smokeout Day, she was discovered in a smoke-free dining room puffing on a cigarette, a gesture her bosses now say symbolized her "defiant attitude." Explains Sister Ruth Ann Panning, a Penrose official: "Smoking was mentioned because it reflected an attitude of 'I'll do what I please.'" (Ms. Trenkler says she now intends to file a wrongful-discharge suit.)

Indeed, a lot of smokers complain that the very smoking restrictions intended to make them healthier and more productive actually work to their disadvantage. While some manage to quit or drastically curtail their habit, others admit that when they are supposed to be making critical decisions, they are really worrying about when and where they can have their next cigarette. That anxiety, they say, undermines their ability to perform.

Now that she isn't allowed to smoke at her desk, Sharon Randolph, a manager in customer service at New York Telephone Co., says she is often tempted to slam down the phone on customers. "You're preoccupied with thinking, 'God, I hope this conversation {with a customer} ends,'" she says. "You'll do or say almost anything just to have a cigarette." Ms. Randolph feels such deprivation has turned her already stressful job into a pressure cooker. "By the time I hang up, I'm jumping out of my skin," she says. "That's probably more unhealthy than smoking."

But when smokers duck out for cigarette breaks, their productivity suffers. That can fuel the perception that smokers aren't as capable or as conscientious as their nonsmoking peers. Ms. Randolph is so anxious about maintaining her productivity that she now takes work home at night.

However they try to juggle the demands of their habit and their workload, some smokers fear that nonsmokers will run out of patience. Kathleen Landry, the manager of staffing at Greyhound, sees the day when her company's bosses, tolerant up to now, crack down on the trips that smokers make to the outdoor plaza. So with the help of jujubes, she is struggling to cut down to just two cigarettes per workday.

"There almost aren't words to describe how difficult it is," she confides. "But if we smokers continue to stand outside smoking, instead of sitting inside working, it obviously will hurt all our careers."

Others refuse to back down. David W. Brenton, an engineering assistant at a Motorola Inc. government-electronics facility in Chandler, Ariz., now faces the prospect of his career going up in smoke. Mainly in response to local ordinances, Motorola soon will prohibit employees from smoking in their work areas and private offices. And when that happens, Mr. Brenton plans to quit the company where he has worked for eight years -- rather than abandon his pack-and-a-half-a-day habit. He says he is bitter that Motorola has exceeded local requirements, allowing him, as he puts it, to be "victimized."

(Motorola won't discuss Mr. Brenton's case, but it says its purpose is to find "something fair and equitable" for all employees.)

"I feel ripped off," Mr. Brenton says. "I feel as though a lot of things I wanted to do here and worked my way up to do will have to go by the wayside."

By: Alix M.Freedman

Also visit: Best Way To Quit Smoking

Quit Smoking News

Quit Smoking Guide

Smokers fume as employers enforce ban.

Rows are bubbling up as health trusts, some police forces and universities act to stub out the habit at work. By Sian Griffiths

SOPHIE BLINMAN made the headlines just before Christmas: she was asked to leave her new job after 45 minutes when bosses discovered she was a smoker.

The 21-year-old, recruited through an employment agency, was dismissed from her temporary telesales post at Dataflow Communications in Somerset. She didn’t light up in the company buildings but had admitted to staff that she was a smoker.

The company, which has 33 staff, last week reiterated its policy: “We do not hire smokers and the policy is on the website. Sophie was a temporary employee . . . if she had been interviewed for a permanent position it would have been discovered that she was a smoker and she would not have been offered a job.”

It’s a story to strike fear into the hearts of puffers everywhere — even as they embark on new-year resolutions to give up the habit. Bosses in health trusts, police forces and even universities are taking an increasingly hard line on those who smoke at work.

If you are an employee in the public sector, 2006 will be the year you have an added incentive to quit. It may cost you your job if you don’t.

Under the health bill that is now going through parliament, all NHS premises and government departments have to become no-smoking zones by the end of this year.

Even before the bill becomes law, which is expected in the next few months, some health-service bosses are bringing in strict policies in advance of the December deadline. London is at the forefront of the change — smoking was banned on all NHS premises in London from January 1.

Staff are being helped to quit with some trusts offering nicotine-replacement therapy or time off for those who want to get help to stop.

The boundaries are being drawn more tightly in the public sector than in private companies. While companies have provided refuges for smokers to take cigarette breaks on roofs or in their grounds, there will be no such provision in many hospitals. Smoking outside and even smoking off duty if you are in uniform will become a disciplinary offence in certain trusts.

March 8 — No Smoking Day — is the day the Suffolk East primary care trust has chosen to bring in its ban. All its 3,500 hospital staff will face disciplinary action if they are caught smoking on NHS premises, while they are on duty or while they are wearing their uniform.

Although the aim is to be “compassionate” about the new condition of service — with help for staff to qive up — the trust confirmed that if someone persistently lit up on hospital premises or was often seen smoking in uniform, “it would become a disciplinary matter”.

The move has already caused controversy. While public-sector trade unions such as Unison have been calling for a ban for years, some are also worried that smokers may end up being victimised by overzealous bosses.

In America countless companies, police forces and municipal governments refuse to hire smokers. Some insist on nicotine tests and even use lie-detectors.

Britain is still some way from such extreme measures, but there are signs that we may be inching in that direction and voices are beginning to be raised in protest.

Karen Webb, director for the eastern region of the Royal College of Nursing, for instance, has reservations about Suffolk East primary care trust’s decision to extend its policy to “staff who are seen smoking wearing their name badges off NHS premises”.

She said: “We support the smoking ban on the premises, but off the premises it’s more difficult . . . our view would be that these organisations have bigger things to deal with than policing the smoking habits of staff who are not on NHS sites.”

There is another row bubbling up in North Wales where the police force has scrapped cigarette breaks and banned smoking for all staff while at work or on police premises, including car parks.

The policy came into effect last week and the force warned that any breaches would result in disciplinary action.

Richard Brunstrom, chief constable of North Wales Police, said: “Smoking is a nasty and dangerous habit, which not only damages the health of the addicts themselves but also, through passive inhalation, the health of those around them.

“Smokers generally have a much worse attendance record due to smoking-related illnesses and they are more likely to suffer injuries at work. Smoking-related absence from work also adds to the pressure on colleagues.”

But it was the wording of an advertisement for traffic police officers in the principality that brought open confrontation. When the force decided to advertise the jobs with a clause excluding smokers from applying, the North Wales Police Federation sprang into action.

“The smoking ban started at the beginning of the year and there’s a 50-50 split among staff about whether it bothers them,” said Richard Eccles of the Police Federation, who disputes the national attendance and sickness statistics for smokers.

“There was a lot of concern about the advertisement that said, ‘Don’t bother applying for these jobs if you’re a smoker’.”

The federation’s challenge prompted the North Wales force to take legal advice on the job advertisements. The advice has yet to be made public.

Eccles said: “The problem is that staff were employed under one set of rules and now, halfway through their careers, they are being told that some jobs are not open.”

But he accepts that there is probably little, legally, that smokers can do. “It is discrimination, but not the kind that you can take to an employment tribunal,” said Eccles.

Hugh Robertson, head of health and safety at the TUC, said that every effort must be made to cut the number of people who die from passive smoking at work each year — a figure that he says now stands at 700, 48 of whom worked in pubs and clubs.

But Robertson agreed that it was important people were not “stigmatised for something that is legal”.

He said: “If you drive smoking underground, you create more risks. If people can’t smoke openly anywhere, what will they do — go into a stationery cupboard and smoke there? They will just smoke in a clandestine way.”

The Sunday Times

January 08, 2006

Also visit: Quit smoking method

Quit smoking guide

Quit smoking news

Quit smoking products

Best Way To Quit Smoking

Job Search Information

Smoking or Non ?

CollegeGrad.com

The question is asked every time we enter a restaurant. And I will always turn to the interviewee and ask, "Which do you prefer?" Whether you smoke or not, always respond, "It's up to you." And if you do smoke, do not smoke, even if your interviewer smokes.

Smokers beware. Smoking is at an all-time low on the acceptance scale. You are not a protected minority--and you are definitely in the minority. Even the smell of smoke on your clothes can count against you. If you smoke, do not smoke the day of the interview. In fact, do not smoke after your last shower prior to the interview. And wear fresh clothes which are free of the tobacco smell. Tough rules? Possibly. But there are enough sensitive noses and prejudiced minds out there that you should do your very best to avoid any and all potential negatives. And smoking is one area that most of society looks down on.

If you do smoke, there will likely be an advantage to kicking the habit before you begin work--ideally, before you begin interviewing, given the potential negative impact it can have on the job search process. Most companies now force employees to smoke either in a designated smoking room or outside the building (which can be especially rough in northern climates). The amount of time necessary for even the average pack-a-day smoker to get their nicotine fix can amount to over 10% lost productivity. This fact is not quickly ignored by the average manager. And it may eventually work against you, either in your job search or in your professional career.

If you have been looking for an incentive to quit, this may be your opportunity.

Also visit: Quit Smoking In A Natural And Easy Way.

Quit Smoking Methods

Quit Smoking Products

WHO jobs: Smokers need not apply.

Kounteya Sinha--Times News Network

NEW DELHI: If you smoke and want a job in the World Health Organisation, you’ll have to kick the habit.

As of December 1, all applicants to WHO are being asked if they smoke or use other tobacco products. If their answer is yes and if they qualify for the job, they are asked to quit. They are hired only if they agree to do so.

This was stated by WHO’s director of immunisation, vaccines and biologicals Dr Jean Marie Okwo Bele, who was in Delhi recently to participate in the 3rd Global Alliance of Vaccine and Immunisation partners’ meeting.

Dr Bele said: "We are no longer recruiting smokers under our tough new employment policy. All applicants to any of our offices across the globe are being asked whether they smoke. If they qualify for the job, they are being asked to quit smoking. Only on agreeing are they being recruited."

He said: "This decision is being communicated to all our global branches, to be put into immediate effect. As of December 1, all employment notices will include a line stating that the UN health agency has a smoke-free environment and does not promote tobacco use or recruit smokers."

Also visit: Quit Smoking Methods

Quit Smoking Products

Quit Smoking News

Best Way To Quit Smoking

Butting In: Employers Penalize Smokers and Overweight Workers

By Ursula Furi-Perry

Some companies are enticing employees to lead healthier, more productive lives with a variety of "wellness" initiatives, including smoking-cessation counseling and products, weight maintenance plans, and exercise programs. Companies are promoting everything from a discount on smoking replacement aids and health club memberships to substantial discounts on health insurance premiums.

But in recent months, some companies have gone further, imposing what some critics say are stiff and unfair penalties against smokers and overweight workers.

A handful of companies, for instance, are charging employees who smoke higher insurance premiums. In states like Minnesota, that choice is protected by legislation. State law expressly allows employers to charge different premium rates as long as the differences reflect actual differential costs to the company.

Sandra Sandell, director of the Secondhand Smoke Resource Center at the Association of Nonsmokers in Minnesota, said that employers who are self-insured--those that offer health insurance to all their employees and bear its costs--may determine that it costs more to insure its smokers and then charge the extra amount to their employees who smoke.

"Smokers are not a protected class," she said. "If the employer determines that it costs more to insure its smokers, it can charge the extra amount to its employees who smoke." In fact, the laws of the state expressly allow employers to do so.

Nonetheless, employers must square their decision to provide different health premiums with the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA,) which prohibits employers offering health insurance from requiring similarly situated individuals to pay higher premiums on the basis of any health-status-related factor.

"Employers may offer special discounts, rebates, and incentives in return for employees' adherence to wellness programs," said James McElligott, a partner practicing employer benefits law at McGuireWoods, LLP, in Richmond, VA. "To do so, they must meet some standards: the program has to be reasonably designed to promote health and prevent disease; the rewards must be proportionate; the employer must measure the reward strictly based on employees' adherence to the program; employees must have the opportunity to qualify for the program at least once a year; and employers must provide a reasonable alternative to those employees whose entry into the program may be unreasonably difficult."

Statutes such as Minnesota's may appear to be contradictory to HIPAA's standards, but states have the ultimate trump card in enacting insurance legislation. "The Minnesota statute is an attempt at balance," said Douglas N. Silverstein, partner at Kesluk & Silverstein in Los Angeles, who has substantial experience representing both employers and employees in labor and employment suits. "It reflects the legislative intent to protect lawful off-duty conduct while recognizing that smoking results in higher costs, which should be shared by employer and employee." Depending on interpretation, smoking in particular may or may not qualify as a health-status-related factor.

"Laws dealing with discrimination have traditionally made a distinction between immutable characteristics and (voluntary) behaviors," Mr. McElligott said. "Smoking is a mixed bag. While it is addictive and a difficult habit to break, it's also a behavior," rather than an innate characteristic. "It's also important to recognize that HIPPAA is fairly new," said Mr. Silverstein. "The issue may ultimately be resolved through the courts."

A growing number of companies are even beginning to refuse to hire candidates who smoke. Union Pacific Corporation reportedly recently implemented a trial program in several of the 23 states where it does business, vowing to hire only nonsmokers wherever possible.

The Pinellas Sheriff's office in Florida reportedly will not consider applicants who are smokers or have used tobacco products for six months prior to employment. In Washington State, the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department not only refuses to hire smokers, it even asks employees to sign an affidavit promising not to smoke.

The reasons behind not hiring smokers are manifold. Simply put, experts say, smokers can be a great nuisance-and expense-in the workplace. In a recent survey of 47,000 workers in six companies, the MEDSTAT Group, a market resource and intelligence firm specializing in healthcare, determined that smokers cost employers $1,714 more per year than nonsmoker employees. Smokers also take more sick days and breaks during the workday, experts say. Furthermore, in a world of growing awareness about the detrimental effects of both smoking and secondhand smoke, employers simply do not want to project an image of endorsing tobacco use.

Employers are not barred from excluding smokers, experts say, because smoking is considered a lifestyle choice, not a disability or health problem. Therefore, smokers are technically not a protected class under anti-discrimination statutes, such as the Americans with Disabilities Act. In those states where smokers are not expressly protected by statute, not hiring tobacco users is basically legal. "Smokers are not a protected class," said V. James DeSimone, partner at Schonbrun DeSimone Seplow Harris and Hoffman, an employment rights law firm in Venice, CA.

In fact, some courts have found for employers on the issue. "Where job applicants had to sign an affidavit of nonsmoking for a year, the Florida Supreme Court upheld that policy," explained Mr. Silverstein. "In effect, the court said that because smokers are constantly required to reveal whether they smoke, they do not have (a reasonable expectation of privacy)."

But not every state offers employers free reign to decline hiring smokers. Many states have enacted "lifestyle discrimination" statutes, prohibiting employment discrimination based on smoking, and even obesity and moderate alcohol use in some cases.

In New Jersey, for instance, the law prevents employers from denying employment or discharging from employment or taking any other adverse action against smokers unless the employer has a "rational" employment-related reason for doing so. New Jersey's statute explicitly prohibits employers from deciding between applicants on the basis of smoking.

California, Maine, New Mexico, New Hampshire, and Kentucky also have enacted legislation to protect smokers. "In those states, employees would probably have a pretty strong argument against adverse discrimination," Mr. Silverstein said.

Most of these "smokers' rights" statutes do allow employers some leeway: for example, employers may declare a smoke-free workplace and have smoke-free policies during work hours.

Some measures also protect against other forms of lifestyle discrimination, shielding those who may overeat or drink alcohol in the privacy of their own homes. In fact, obesity is becoming a growing concern among employers, so much so that employer-based weight management plans are becoming the next wave of smoking cessation programs.

But employers may not get away with charging obese employees higher health insurance premiums. Obesity is likely to be considered a health factor protected by HIPAA, even a disability in some instances.

"Chronic obesity has been recognized as a disability. Here, more clearly defined standards apply," said Mr. McElligott.

"Whether obesity is considered a medical condition may depend on its medical causes," Mr. DeSimone explained.

It is important to recognize the wider societal issues behind smoking and the workplace, experts say. "On one end of the spectrum, there's an individual's constitutional right to privacy," Mr. Silverstein explained, "on the other, there's well-accepted scientific data that smoking causes maladies, costs employers more, and makes healthcare more expensive. It's tough to resolve disputes when societal behaviors stand otherwise."

The effectiveness of employers' tough-arm smoking cessation techniques remains to be seen, although some experts prefer milder solutions. "Investing in employees through counseling programs and other methods is a better solution than charging higher health premiums as a type of punishment," said Dawn Robbins, Health Policy Coordinator for Tobacco Free Oregon, a statewide smoking cessation initiative. "I would rather see laws that encourage individuals than employers prohibiting people from seeking employment" based on smoking, Mr. DeSimone agreed.

Also visit: Quit smoking in a natural way

Additional Methods