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[benchilada]

Cleveland Clinic will no longer hire smokers
By Phil Galewitz
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 29, 2007
The Cleveland Clinic, which runs a hospital in Weston and a new outpatient health center in West Palm Beach, will no longer hire smokers, the company announced today.

The world famous health institution

Comments

[anvilchorus]

Its within their right. I'm a smoker, and I understand that much.

[benchilada]

May I ask--without saying I'm for or against it--how it is their right?

One cannot discriminate against women, or disabled people, or people who enjoy curry.

Why is smoking different? What legal behavior is next?

[anvilchorus]

Its a pure choice. You're not born into it (like being a woman), you're not indoctrinated into it (like a religion), and you're not forced to deal with it (like a disability). Its an expensive, health adverse, death causing choice that people make every day when they light up, and if its in the presence of others, it hurts them too.

Again, I'm a smoker, so I'm supposed to hate stuff like this. But I like this version of socio-economic pressure to stop smoking better than the overtaxation of cigarettes. Maybe thats because I dont work for the Cleveland Clinic....

[benchilada]

I think that denial of livelihood is slightly more draconian and dictatorial than increasing the price of a non-necessity item.

Also, as I said below:

If this company wants to come out and say, "Look, smokers cost us lots of money for health insurance," then I'd be slightly less perturbed. Then, however, I'd think how I'd feel if they said, "Look, fat people cost us lots of money for health insurance...

[froborr]

Interesting. Makes sense: smoking increases your likelihood of carrying respiratory infections. It seems a reasonable precaution to keep smokers away from sick people, for both the smokers' and the patients' health.

[benchilada]

Weakened immune systems can also be caused by an individual being overweight, or drinking "too much" alcohol, or even a simple chemical imbalance.

Two of those three are "preventable" problems...so no more fat drinkers at hospitals?

[froborr]

Matter of degrees. Regular smokers compromise their resistance to airborne infections much more than overweight individuals or any of the heaviest drinkers, and somebody who drinks that heavily is going to have much worse problems that will almost certainly prevent them from getting hired.

[benchilada]

Oddly, I was just doing some reading on weakened immune systems recently, and they said that being overweight--or having high cholesterol, et al--is one of the primary environmental ways to develop one.

If this company wants to come out and say, "Look, smokers cost us lots of money for health insurance," then I'd be slightly less perturbed. Then, however, I'd think how I'd feel if they said, "Look, fat people cost us lots of money for health insurance..."

[665321]

Guess I won't be working there.

All this anti-smoking jive is getting on my nerves.

[randomposting]

Mine too. Big time. People are really becoming millitant about it.

[dragon_smoke]

Smoking is NOT illegal. I can go for an entire shift without smoking, so it isn't something I have to do while I am at work. The people who support these kind of policies are going to start arguing economics. Well, I have missed more work in my lifetime due to drinking exessively than I have smoking (which amounts to NO time missed from work because of that).

I want the people who support these policies on the basis of economics to be just as vocal about allowing business owners to pick and chose from "high risk lifestyles" when businesses start refusing to hire overweight people because they might possibly at some point in the future get diabetes, heart diseae or some other costly condition. Oh wait, they already do that. They just don't talk about it.

[dragon_smoke]

The icon is Natira from Farscape.

[redbeard13]

Consider someone who visits a place where smoking pot is legal. Such as Amsterdam. They return here and have to take a drug test to get a job, and get found out

[benchilada]

I'm afraid your examples don't really stand up, though.

Yes, blogging on one's own time has gotten one fired, but the only instances I've heard of are ones where the person was complaining about or insulting their place of work or fellow employees. I've heard of one or two that have happened because of the person spewing hate online, but that's an extreme event.

As for pot, you've done something that's illegal in this country, but you've done it in another country. But since you can't PROVE that you did it in another country...you = screwed.

Also, being overweight and having high cholesterol is "a choice..."

[redbeard13]

My examples were intended to demonstrate past precedents, not be the main point. My main point still stands. There is no 'right to work'. No employer is required by law, ethics, or morality, to hire any given individual. There are a handful of protected classes (sex, religion, age, race) for which they cannot chose not to hire you. Everything else is at their discretion

[benchilada]

An article that relates to our discussion.

It's important to bear in mind that all of the things you've mentioned have to do with the "appearance" of the business. Hooters proved their case by saying that the concept of the business is "attractive" women in tight outfits, and that to alter that business model would be detrimental to them.

Other places say you can't have tongue rings because they don't like that to be seen by clients.

These, and all the other examples, are things that HAPPEN or ARE OCCURRING on company time. Drug use and other illegal activities? Of course a company can discriminate based on illegal things.

What the big deal is is that a company is publicly stating that a legal activity which does not occur at the place of employment is reason for them to not hire you. You keep speaking of this "right to work" argument as though it actually applies to this situation. It's not whether there is a "right to work" it's whether there's a "right to deny employment."