When posting on a thread about junk food in school, this article popped into my head. A Massachusetts police officer was fired for smoking.

The kicker is that Mass. police and firemen have to sign a pledge not to smoke because the state can offer cheaper and more comprehensive disability benefits this way.

Using this logic companies and governments could control what we are allowed to do (bungee jumping etc.) eat (junk food) and maybe even keep us from going to Americas debate (stress, blood pressure)

Now obviously the firing seems ridiculous (at least to me) but how about the policy. Is this an appropriate way to cut government costs?

Police in Mass.: Where there's smoke, you're fired

Bah, you need to register to get to the site...

If the guy signed a contract not to smoke, he made a decision and should stick with it. Now, if employees were forced to sign the agreement (i.e. being fired if you don't sign) then it is no longer legal. I think it would be fair to circulate such promises to let the insurance company know what percentage of the workers participated in "unhealthy" behavior, or in this case, those who pledge not to participate in such.

So it all boils down to whether the guy was coerced into entering the agreement. If he was, I expect he will have his job back with full back pay. If not, he should honor his commitment.

He was not coerced. But he would not have been able to get the job without signing. One of the quirks of this articel that makes it interesting is that a superior officer was a witness against him because they had smoked together. The catch is that the superior officer took the job before the oath was required.

Here is a non-register link with less detail. You need to scroll down to June 20th.
Link

To me, that is coersion. Don't know about legally though. It certainly is discriminatory if existing employees can do an activity, but new ones have different rules of conduct.

Of course it is unfair.

Insurance companies have honed exclusionary practices to a fine art. Anything to deny a claim.

It is the depth of hypocrisy to have the superior officer rat out the other officer if he was smoking as well, and for the former to still be covered under the insurance.

I think the former police officer has a real case against the police department. He should get his job back.

I heard a piece on this on NPR the other day. It was the result of a law passed by the state legislature to give blanket coverage for disability insurance to the police and fire departments. But it was too expensive to cover smokers as new hires. So the law was passed and it seems to have been winked at for fifteen years. This officer is the third person to be fired in fifteen years.

Yes, it's a stupid and unfair regulation, but if he signed it, they do have a case. There could be a difference legally in forcing an employee to sign a non-smoking contract and just having a "we don't employ smokers" policy... that's one the lawyers will have to handle, I'm sure.

I get the feeling there is more to the story. These sorts of laws, which the shorter article calls "little-known" are the ones used to get rid of somebody when the higher-ups want to get rid of somebody but don't have any solid official grounds to do so.

Interjecting here to offer another thought on this. If it was legal to make a condition of employment a "healthy lifestyle" such as not smoking, would that also apply to other lifestyles? For example, activities that have been proven to lead to a higher risk of AIDS?

What - like being Haitian? Or a haemophiliac?


I think the law in question is outrageous - just as I think that insurance company policies in relation to smoking are outrageous. Obeisity, for example, leads to far more - and earlier - deaths in the US than smoking and AIDS combined. Is it just easier to discriminate against "politically safe" citizens like smokers rather than, say, McDonalds' patrons? Evidently. This law itself, regardless of whether applicants are forced to sign on to it - and the practices of insurance companies - should be tested in our courts.

I just got some life insurance this morning. (My wife sells it if any Tennessean needs to buy some )
It appeared smoking and weight were both significant factors in insurability.
I have a friend who now tips the scales at over 300 and he cannot get approved for additional life insurance because of this.

As far as I have read and heard about this on NPR (and unfortunately I cannot find a good link from the legislative debate on passing this bill/disibality program), I tend to blame the legislature and not the insurance companies. To save money they made all hires pledge to be from the healthier lifestyle group of non-smokers. This precedent is a dangerous one that I think could move on to smokers, obesity, people with multiple sex partners, CUbs fans, and other hi risk groups. (Remember Sesame Street? One of these does not belong. . . . )

Exclusionary is the word! And not just to deny a claim, but to deny insurance. The concept of insurance is to spread the risks, or so I thought. If insurance companies can choose to insure only those most likely to not suffer an illness or accident, the rates should be considerably lower, but that isn't the case.
Examples: While working at a Nuclear Power Plant as a contract worker, I was quoted an obscenely high rate for disability inusrance, based on where I worked. I told them that statistics prove that Nuclear power plants were far safer than any other power plant, but that didn't matter. Their fear of anything nuclear was all that mattered.
And more recently, going for life insurance, I admitted to having 3 small basal cell carcinomas over the last 15 years, and having a polyp (not a tumor) removed during a rectal exam (colon cancer killed my father at 75, but only because he ignored the symptoms til it was too late). So there I was at age 55, never smoked and rarely drank, no history of ANY life threatening disease occuring until very old age in any of my family members, and the companies don't want to insure me unless I pay a very high rate. The 2 problems I mentioned are the most curable and least likely to kill of all cancers. My weight is only about 20 pounds high based on charts, and all my blood tests are in the good range.
Based on this and what other types of insurance companies have been doing lately, and I think that we may have found our next big corporate scandal in the making.

Under current law, I don't see how any employee can be fired or not hired based on their weight or whether or not they smoke.

Let's face it, our society considers smoking and obesity as an illness. The medical treatment options for smoking or obesity are everywhere, and quite a few are approved by the FDA to actually treat a disease.

So, I did a bit of digging...

In this case, we have what is known as a "qualified individual with a disability", which the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 defines as:



Now, I didn't read the whole act, and in particular the parts about commuter transportation (20+ boring pages), but it seems that Congress may have written a law that protects nicotine junkies and fat people.

Questions about personal medical conditions should be off-limits when it comes to hiring/firing decisions unless it actually hinders the person's ability to perform the job.

Mike

I do think if he signed a contract to stick with it. However it is soo stupid for that contract. Most jobs allow a 30 or 15 minute breaks throught the day and luch breaks. The officer should be allowed to smoke whenever. Its the officer that is saving the world (or at least the city) and not the contract writers. I say go on a strike about that with a union

Over and Out

I think I'll use a personal anecdote that hopefully relates to this thread to answer your topic.
A few months ago, there was a large, felony-level money theft at my workplace. All of my immediate staff was asked to go in for fingerprints, and one print turned up on the cashbox that did not match any of my staff's prints. The next logical step was to make everyone in the building get prints done. The police then informed us that they could not come to my workplace to set up a fingerprinting station because they legally impose an order to print---it had to be completely voluntary, and if someone refused, it would make them stand out, even if they're refusal was one of moral or ethical implications, and not because they were guilty of the theft. So, my supervisor now wants to fingerprint everyone that is hired in the building upon the submission of their employment application. In other words, you have to agree to such and such if you want to be hired. Now, if this was the case with the police officer regarding smoking, it DOES seem discriminatory. However, the police officer was fully aware that if he wanted the job, he had to make this agreement. In my situation, if you want to work where I do, you must be fingerprinted, or you can apply somewhere else. In this economy, finding a decent job is difficult enough, so it's not an easy decision to turn a job down based on your ethical beliefs over a seemingly simple issue. It's understandable; to turn someone away for not being fingerprinted, because this is a measure taken in order to protect your business. But for being a smoker? That's an issue of personal health. I firmly believe that business and the government should leave the issue of smoking completely alone. If someone chooses to smoke, that's their perogative, and it should not affect an employer's decision to hire them. I agree with the first post--this is just another step in controlling the lives of citizens. Protection of your business is one thing, but having a say in what an employee does to their personal body and mind should remain the employee's decision, and not the employer's.

I want my friendly bob to be able to run without having to stop and catch his breath every block. I know it's not exactly a legal argument, but I can see where the PD is coming from in designing this contract.

Most importantly though, the man breached a legally-binding agreement. They have no choice but to fire him unless some other course of action is spelled out in the contract, or else the contracts become worthless for everyone else.