In an effort to lower health care costs, some companies in the US are refusing to hire smokers.
Applicants are asked to take declare if they smoke or not on their CV and they are tested too!
Also when hired they are randomly tested and if they are found to be smokers they can be fired!
This is all done in the name of having healthier employees!!
what do you think is this fair? do you think it will cross over to EU?
Its just another form of discrimination
Due to the new rules on recruitment, you now don’t even have to declare how old you are, and therefore cannot be done for discrimination. So the answer to your question, I think is no, this is one think that will not come over from the pond.
We have enough s**t from them anyway, we should be looking towards Europe for what we should be doing here, and not the backward yanks.
Sorry if this offends
I cant see that coming over here!, the country is near to revolting against the government as is it!.. and like said above, it’s discrimination and the UK is so PC about that sort of stuff. I was actually advised by someone once that in an interview I shouldnt mention that I ride a motorcycle!
Don’t think that it could be translated over here, but if it is in a contract of employment it could possibly be enforced. I do know that certain companies tested for narcotics, and if positive you are sacked.Can understand it, health care costs are cripping American companies, and people will take a lower paid job just to get the health benefits. To get the equivalent health cover to what we have you have to spend $1000 per month for your family. I know a friend had to give up ice hockey and horse riding when she was made redundant as she could no longer avoid the insurance that covered her for certain sports.They are already doing it for people who are overweight, but then you can see the person during the interview.
Sorry to disappoint, but the reason its begun over there is the insurance industry. And almost ALL legislation to do with personal circumstances in work or at home is driven by the insurance industry… politicians don’t listen to citizens, we’re too disparate and don’t have good, successufl, powerful representatives, we have MPs. Insurance firms however have the ear of government as they are big business.
In the same way you can be tested for mental illness (as it is a potential risk to productivity) the cigarette issue WILL come to this country somehow. Same as life insurance is almost impossible to get if you have cancer in your family… the genetics issue. You have a greater chance of developing cancer which is a BIG bite out of the insurance co’s profits.
Most of the oil and gas companies over here have random drug and alcohol testing, and it is part of the t’s & c’s when you join the company.
This was mainly brought in for the guys on the rigs, but it was then included for all staff.
Must admit, sacked a few people for the drugs bit though.
But smoking’s legal and doesn’t impair anyone’s ability to do a job. I can’t see how it could be justified to refuse them work. Security at Bloomberg where I work will move staff along that are smoking out front of the building. That’s of course utter balls because the pavement’s a public highway. People figure it’s not worth arguing over and cross the street.
Nearly all the companies that I have worked for do not allow smoking outside the front of their buildings, so nothing new there.
Saying that though, they usually have a dedicated prison like, disgusting area that is the “designated” smoking area, and if you stay, you can be “told off”.
yes and yes…
Smoker are just a pain at work. Always on a smoke break (5 minutes to get down, 5 minutes to smoke and chat, 5 minutes to get back up…_ 15 minutes or so every 60-90 minutes…)
I say smoker should get hired at 75% of the non smoker salary and no be covered by company health plan…
Before you start, I smoke for 15 years so I know…
You smoke for 15 years, or your smoked?
The only thing in the defence of smokers, is that even though it is now not counted as social, the smokers do still have a rapport with each other. It is a bit like the chats around the coffee machine, problems do get sorted by talking to each other. So maybe those extra 5 minutes here and there are worth it in the end.
Smoked
My point is I do get it and I have used all the excuses under the sky to justify smoking during working hours. None of them are actually valid.
I heard that there is going to be a smoking ban in public places in some parts of India…
…if that is true, then anything can happen here with regard to smoking imo…
I work in the Oil & Gas industry and the last company I worked for had drugs and alcohol test when you join up and a yearly one if you travelled for the company, it was bought in for the guys working on our sites but all staff had to do it, even the secretaries!! Saw a few people escorted out of the building after their test, not me before you ask, I lasted 5 years 
Surely while its still legal its an individual lifestyle choice and not a sackable offece. if you breach their sickness policy as a result, then fine, if you break the laws about smoking in public spaces then fine, but if your performance is good, your targets met, then they can not discriminate purely on this. Whats next for fuggs sake, not hiring those who are obese or who enjoy skydiving or rugby etc etc etc.
It’s already here!
My company asked on application if I was a smoker, and if I was I had to pay a premium for the companies private health care - non smokers are given it free.
If you lie and say you don’t smoke and they find out - the insurance scheme becomes invalid and you have to pay, but they won’t sack you for it.
Next it will be declare how much sugar you intake in case you have diabetes, or how many fried breakfasts you have in case you have high cholesterol !
The planet has gone mad!
actually… i think this is next (seriously)!!
Contract before the current one was at a company that would not employ anyone full time that smoked (written into their contracts),OK they were a health and wellbeing company, so yep I was the only smoker…until it came to nights in the pub.
Then we found out the the chief medical officer, who is a cancer specialist smokes, plus 2 or three of the developers.
It’s all compleate borroxs.
It does happen, you only need to meet the person and then make the judgement not to employ them. No need to ask.
Have to agree with the productivity question (as well as the knowledge that people who have just come back in from a fag break STINK of cigarette smoke - yuk!).
I had a friend who was trying to give up smoking, and I suggested some alternatives. Instead of going out for a fag to have think and to meet people, keep a fruit bowl on your desk and when you need to get away from it, grab an apple and go and speak to people who don’t smoke (so you get to meet your other colleagues, not just the fag-heads). He had a couple of other tricks as well, but that, oh and the special teabags so he’d go and make himself a nice cup of Earl Grey instead of lighting up.
It worked very well for him. Increased his productivity, got to speak to a wider range of his colleagues, felt much healthier and had fewer colds so bosses were pleased. And with the fag money he put aside each day, he managed to buy himself a new computer without even noticing the money going out of his pocket. All round success.
And I’m one of those ex-smokers - you know, the worst kind of non-smoker there is.
