North Star Writers Group

Somewhere in our history, enough Americans with loud voices decided the best way to keep people from something dangerous is to scare the bejeezus out of them. Evidently, frightened children have blossomed into frightened adults in charge of big companies.

On December 1, The World Health Organization (WHO) stopped hiring smokers.

Corporate Accountability International (CAI), a corporation whose goal is to “challenge irresponsible and dangerous corporate actions around the world”, has teamed with the WHO’s campaign, claiming, “The WHO’s initiative will put pressure on the U.S. Congress to implement effective tobacco control measures.”

The WHO is not the first company to enact such a policy. In 2003, Weyco Incorporated, a company specializing in Employee Benefit Plans and Benefit Management, announced “smokers need not apply.” In 2004, Union Pacific followed suit.

The Department of Health and Human Services estimated that “smokers account for 8% of U.S. healthcare expenditures, or $75 billion, followed by another $80 billion in lost productivity.” Assuming these figures are correct, it is hard to blame the companies that offer benefits for being reluctant to hire smokers. Of course, the next logical step is to steer clear of the hefty population, as I can only imagine that the healthcare and productivity figures for obese people are, well, obese. However, because it is much more popular to vilify smokers than a fat person, companies will probably avoid explicitly rejecting job applicants on account of their obesity for quite a while.

Since potty-training, children are assured that cigarettes were created by Satan and that anyone who smokes them probably serves him coffee. They are only allowed to see a cigarette if it is surrounded by a thick red circle with a diagonal line through it, or between the lips of someone with dark patches under their eyes and unkempt, musty hair, pictured in black and white. (Humor yourself and imagine the tobacco in these ads replaced by profiles of fat people, or double-cheeseburgers.)

It is responsible to inform children that smokers tend to die sooner, but do we really need to add, “And by the way, Tommy, your Uncle Larry is a bad person”? Every time I watch one of those “the truth” commercials, I feel like America is being invaded by teenage zombies.

So what if tobacco-users cost more money to maintain and do not work as efficiently? If the criterion for hiring employees is the same as the criterion for buying a car, then companies ought to stop hiring anyone with any condition that typically leads to increased healthcare costs and decreased productivity. As long as employees require healthcare benefits and companies are obliging, companies have every right to stipulate good health.

“Well, miss, you are the most brilliant and talented software engineer this company has ever seen, but quite frankly, we are leery of your high cholesterol. Sorry.”

CAI’s suggestion that “The U.S. implement effective tobacco control measures” is the wrong formula. They, along with the WHO, are attempting to indirectly suffocate an unhealthy habit through the work force. But they fail to realize that people will never stop smoking. People like tobacco and it will not go away. They also fail to realize that smokers have as much right to work as anyone else.

The core of this issue is greater than some statistics about tobacco-users. It is about whether or not companies that offer benefits are prepared to issue rigorous physical evaluations during both the hiring process and throughout the length of employment. (People are not born with bad habits, they develop them.) Until these companies are prepared for this sort of general discrimination, the employment limitations placed on tobacco-users must be considered bigotry in its purest sense.

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