Should large companies be allowed to ban nicotine users from hire?

Should large companies encourage abortions, deny doctor-assisted suicides?

Because children, death of a worker also affects the bottom line.

originally posted by: JAGStorm
a reply to: Metallicus
"It is an affront to personal liberty."
YES!!!!!!!!!!!!

NO!!!!!!!!!!!!

You do not have a Right to a job at any given business.

a reply to: ketsuko

Oh Ketsuko, how naive and narrow minded you are.

You actually think that if you do nothing that the government disapproves of, you will be safe from all of this.

What about when companies demand dna tests and identify diseases in your ancestry that MAY increase health care costs? Don't what to give DNA, don't apply.

The way in which smoking was handles and approved of by the majority has paved the way for all types of incursions into privacy.

The only way back is to admit that the way smokers have been treated is wrong.

remember, only 8 % of smokers get lung cancer. 92 % don't!. Every other disease you want to mention that is supposedly CAUSED by smoking is nothing more than statistical sleight of hand.

a reply to: TiredofControlFreaks

Closer to 15% of smokers develop lung cancer, but the issue is that about 90% of lung cancer cases are smokers.

not just smoking....everything.



Don't you think HR people research your social media sites to see what kind of person you are. Of course they do, your online presentation is important. They don't have to even give a reason....sorry, pal you just don't fit our company profile...gtfo!!

twitter to your hearts content....

in a country with such low unemployment numbers, it shocks me when I hear of any employer putting hurdles between them and new hired talent.

In our operation we only do background checks. The general idea: if you are a drug user but never got caught for it, then you are not too dumb to work for us. And to be honest, we really only filter our felons (due to GL insurance requirements/legal requirements) and people who are caught for the same thing multiple times (if you can't learn to not drive with a suspended license or get busted for pot by the 2nd or 3rd time, you are too dumb to work for me).

Otherwise, we are hungry for good talent.

originally posted by: JAGStorm
You should look into employer tracking.

Some companies are going so far as to monitor when an employee wakes up, and goes to sleep. Where they are going on free time..... interesting stuff indeed.

No need...

I would simply choose not to work for such an employer.

That said, I would not have a problem with any State that had regulations that forbid such behavior. Corporations are legal fictions after all, and regardless of what some court says, do not possess the same kinds of Rights that living breathing Citizens do - and t hat is one of the first things that needs to be addressed with respect to reform.

originally posted by: tanstaafl

originally posted by: JAGStorm
You should look into employer tracking.

Some companies are going so far as to monitor when an employee wakes up, and goes to sleep. Where they are going on free time..... interesting stuff indeed.

No need...

I would simply choose not to work for such an employer.

That said, I would not have a problem with any State that had regulations that forbid such behavior. Corporations are legal fictions after all, and regardless of what some court says, do not possess the same kinds of Rights that living breathing Citizens do - and t hat is one of the first things that needs to be addressed with respect to reform.

The question is, would you know if they are already doing it..
For example, work cell phones can show a lot of trends!

originally posted by: JAGStorm
The question is, would you know if they are already doing it..
For example, work cell phones can show a lot of trends!

I wouldn't work for a company that forced me to use their phone.

They cannot - at this point in time - violate your privacy like that without at the very least letting you know about it. They can't even monitor your computer usage in the office without letting you know about it (I know, I'm in IT)...

This is nothing new really. Back in 1989 I was applying to work for a company that asked on the application if you were a tobacco user. If you answered yes, your application went no further. I have never smoked (or chewed) and can't stand to be around it but even then, I thought it was wrong that they could ask. I still think it's wrong. The company and union both said it was due to health care costs.

There were people who worked there who were smokers for sure. They just couldn't smoke on site.

Was wrong then and I think it's still wrong today.

If you apply as a pilot or train driver, I can see how they don't want you to take drugs. That's fair and makes sense.
However smoking [not even on the premises but merely at home] should be nobodies business, not even for health insurance.
The reason is that I knew many very competent smoking workers that did a marvellous job and would be an asset to any company. I also knew overweight people that slept most of the time at work and were just carried to tick boxes.
I also knew really stupid vegetarians that had no clue.

Secondly, it's not only smoking that has a potential to get you killed. Driving to work every morning, tired and sleepy or angry and coffee raged on the way home also causes deaths.
Not only that. Forget your skiing holiday or any action holiday, I read so many stories of people dying during those.
Also maybe they should discriminate against anyone who eats takeaway food regularly or doesn't exercise regularly or has unprotected sex etc etc.

Not hiring smokers [or even just nicotine users !!!] is discrimination of good people here, just for some nefarious made up reason, whilst others get off scott free to do all sorts with no backlash.

Oh and someone said they don't want to smell smoke on the co workers. Well let me tell you that I nearly puke when someone has coffee breath and tries to tell me something, or the accounts woman who wears the worst perfume ever. or the guy that stank out a whole super large laboratory with his BO. It's not nice but it isn't the end of the world either, like some people make out.

Hundreds of years ago everyone stank of piss and BO and had stinky gobs and greasy stinky hair. The world still revolved, work was still done and they would have given their right arm to smell a clean smoker. It's all relative.

In short: It's criminal to discriminate against a particular group if the discrimination ignores other similarly bad behaviours. It should be either you sell your body as a lifelong slave and just live your life for your master or they should leave us all the eff alone as long as we do our jobs.

a reply to: tanstaafl

They can't even monitor your computer usage in the office without letting you know about it (I know, I'm in IT)...

I'm in IT too.. Usually when you sign up to work for a place you are giving them those permission, or you don't get hired. Most places, especially places like financial institutions, or regulated companies monitor everything. You sign a broad sweeping statement when hired.

But........

If you are in IT, you and I both know there are ways of looking at things, without looking at things. cough cough...
For example look at your cell phone records. Most people don't even realize you can do that from a computer. Every call, every time, ever duration is there. That shows trends, very interesting trends. I've worked for several fortune 500 companies and they all did it.
What most people don't realize, is that people in general are creatures of habit.
Most companies also at will employers.

originally posted by: JAGStorm
a reply to: tanstaafl
I'm in IT too.. Usually when you sign up to work for a place you are giving them those permission,

Yes... knowingly. They can't hide the fact they do this, or try to trick you.

In fact, many companies have the warning on their Login screens (we don't).

If you are in IT, you and I both know there are ways of looking at things, without looking at things. cough cough...

Sure, but I'm talking about 'legal' monitoring...

For example look at your cell phone records. Most people don't even realize you can do that from a computer. Every call, every time, ever duration is there. That shows trends, very interesting trends. I've worked for several fortune 500 companies and they all did it.

They looked at the cell phone records of your private phone? How? You gave them permission to do that?! I wouldn't, but oh well...

a reply to: tanstaafl

They looked at the cell phone records of your private phone? How? You gave them permission to do that?! I wouldn't, but oh well...

No, work phones. Although you wouldn't, I would say 99% of people given a work phone would, and of the 99% at least
75% used them as personal phones too.

a reply to: TiredofControlFreaks

I agree with everything you said.

If they really wanted to save insurance money, they would target obesity.
It is too sensitive to do that right now, so they are chipping away.
Start with something evil like drugs, then to cigarettes. What will it be next?
And there will be a next!

I’ve been to uhaul literally hundreds of times. Used to have to for work AND I’ve moved A LOT. Always use uhaul.

I can tell you without a doubt, that at the very least 60% of them smoke.

Looks like uhaul is going to have a lot of job openings.

Stupid move on their part.

no.

a reply to: Atsbhct

Reallly!! for Reals and For True?

www.reuters.com...

Lung cancer is the most common form of the disease in the world and 90 percent of all cases are caused by cigarette smoking. It kills 1.2 million people a year.

So the anti-smoking campaign told you that 90 % of all lung cancer is caused by smoking?

About 10 to 15 percent of smokers develop lung cancer — although they often die of other smoking-related causes like heart disease, stroke or emphysema. Lung cancer is also known to kill people who never smoked or who gave up years ago.

The IARC study, which looked at around 900 people with lung cancer, found a link to low levels of vitamin B6 and an amino acid called methionine, found in protein like meat, fish and nuts. B6 is also found in meat, nuts, vegetables and bananas.

“What we have found is that these two things are strong markers of lung cancer risk, but we have not shown they are causing that rise in risk,” said Paul Brennan of the Lyon-based IARC, who led the study and published its findings in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) on Tuesday.

But only 10 to 15 % of smokers actually get lung cancer (other studies show that only 8 % of smokers get lung cancer.

But now the anti-smokers have a real problem. the number of never smokers has gone way up and the number of lung cancer cases have continued to rise.
So now they are jumping on another "cause of lung cancer" being diet. just for your information when nicotine is combusted, it turns into vitamin B complex molecules, which is why smokers have higher levels of vitamin in their blood and therefore, should have lower cancer rates.

So essentially, people quit smoking to avoid getting lung cancer and there has now been an increase in never-smokers getting lung cancer.


www.medpagetoday.com...

"Globally, there is wide variation in the proportion of lung cancers in never-smokers, in the range of 10% to 25%," Peake, Cosford, and colleagues wrote. "With declining rates of smoking, the relative proportion of lung cancers in never-smokers are increasing and this does not appear to be confounded by passive smoking or misreported smoking status."

The authors noted that recent research describes "distinct clinical, pathological, and biological features of lung cancer in never-smokers." Research has documented that lung cancer in never-smokers is largely confined to non-small-cell lung cancers, "with a predominance of adenocarcinoma over squamous cell carcinoma of around 8:1 in Europe," they continued.

"Current estimates of the major contributors to lung cancers in never-smokers in the U.K. are: secondhand smoke (~15%), occupational carcinogen exposure (~20.5% men and 4.3% women), outdoor pollution (~8%), x-ray radiation (~0.8%), and radon exposure (~0.5%)," the commentary authors wrote.

They noted that women who have never smoked have a higher proportion of lung cancers than men who are lifelong never-smokers.

private companies can do whatever they want. It's a perk of being a private company. They may miss out on some fantastic workers due to their choices, but they are their choices to make. Don't worry, there are plenty of companies that aren't blacklisting smokers. Nobody is taking your cigarettes away..........

a reply to: TiredofControlFreaks

I like the warning put on smokes in Mexico. "Use of this product will kill you"
It kind of hits right where it needs to without all the feelz.