Your Life No Longer

Michigan-based company, Weyco, has decided to ban employees from smoking…even at home. That’s right, what you do in your private time is once again decided by your bosses. If you should decide to smoke, or if you currently smoke and refuse to quit, or if you refuse to take a company-administered test to determine if you’re a smoker, you’ll be fired. The boss’ reasoning? It’s going to help workers cut down on their health-care costs, as well as the company’s costs associated with health care.

Is he wrong that stopping smoking will cut back on health care costs for employer and employee? Absolutely not (at least for cigarette smokers, which is all people think of these days when they hear the term “smoking”). Does that justify his decision? Not at all. While there’s no law against what he’s doing (nor do I think there ought to be), and I believe that a private employer can set whatever rules they want for their employees while they are performing company business, I heartily disagree with Weyco when it comes to telling employees what they can and can’t do outside of work. When I’m out of the office (and not on-call…stupid IT), what I do with my time is my own goddamned business. Unless the company I work for has decided to pay me for 168 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, they have no right to tell me what I can and cannot do on my own time.

This is the kind of shit that happens when we start sliding down the “slippery slope” that I’ve mentioned in posts past. There are consequences to allowing idiotic rules to propogate, to allowing corrupt monkeys make policy decisions, and to allow fanatics to make decisions involving large numbers of people. Where does it stop? Interestingly enough, Weyco has chosen to attack smoking as a health risk, but has not made any moves on banning employees from consuming alcohol or assaulting the obese (we are just accepting that every employer already has a policy against drug use on the books somewhere, which technically is just as bad since it still infringes on one’s right to do as one will outside the office, yet somehow I imagine it would be difficult to find those who would complain about that, as “street” drugs are also illegal). One can assume that they ban firearms on company property (because that’s going to stop a criminal or psycho from bringing one: “oh wait, I can’t shoot the place up because they have a rule against guns on company property!”), but I bet they don’t have a ban on owning a handgun outright on the grounds that some fuckwit might accidentally shoot himself and draw on company health insurance. And what about hiring disabled people? Wouldn’t hiring someone with a pre-existing health problem be cause for exclusion, since that person is obviously going to cost the company money?

But don’t worry, the president is awful sensitive…when it comes right down to it, he’ll stick to his guns because he knows that people will quit rather than lose their job (and their income, and their homes, and their family, etc., etc.):

“I’ve had a number of employees come to me who were totally against the policy but quit the habit,” he told CBS. “They’re still here. They didn’t agree with it, but they made a decision (about) what was going to be more important to them: their job or the use of tobacco. I don’t think it’s a hard decision.”

Yeah, it’s not a hard decision when faced with unemployment, foreclosure and an inability to buy the kids clothes. Asshole. This is just one health-nut’s fanatical assault upon smoking to the exclusion of many other “naughty” habits, many of which he probably partakes of regularly. Unfortunately, this one man wields power over many. This is one of those executives who is so far removed from the life of his employees and who has so little real work to do that he must find ways to stay relevant.

Oh well, I’m sure the self-righteous anti-smokers amongst us will find a way to adjust the blinders so they can’t see how this policy, also in use at the World Health Organization, is an affront to personal time and privacy for employees.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 09th, 2005 at 12:49am and is filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.