A (relatively) long time ago, I wrote about the no smoking policy of Weyco, a Michigan based health care company. For those that do not remember, or have not read that far back in time, Weyco prohibits employees from smoking at all. Not just on company time or company property, but even at home. They have instituted the sort of random drug testing more common with illegal drugs to enforce the ban also. At first I was somewhat in favor of this, certainly ambivalent. In my second glance, I am mostly against it, though still somewhat unsure. This long introduction comes because of this article. Apparently some of the smokers are quite upset over this policy. And some of them are pushing law makers in Michigan to prevent it. With at least some success. In my views of it so far, I have focused on its potential impact on the employee, and (via the premiums we pay) on the person's co-workers and society as a whole. John Stossel takes a different approach. He looks at it from the point of view of the employer, who, in this case, is Mr. Weyers, owner of the company. Where does his freedom to employ who he wants, to pay who he wants, start? Where does it stop? While this is a company doing this, and not a government, the freedom to work elsewhere exists. So since it is his company and his money, why should not he have the freedom to enact and enforce his own standards? If he thinks it is morally wrong to smoke, a tenable position (see my second post on this subject), naturally he should enforce such a policy. On the other hand, given the impact on premiums, its easy to see smoking leading to a sort of blacklisting effect. At first, this would tend me towards "but people have a right to work, the right to earn a living to raise their family." Which is true, they do. But this is not a life-time ban; they simply have to quit smoking, something that would be good for them anyway. So in that sense, it is much like saying the alcoholic needs to get help and get in control of his addiction before he will be able to hold a job, something that is eminently reasonable, and eminently common sensical. So I guess my overall conclusion is that since this is a company, and not a government, and in light of the premium impact on others, and in light of the need to respect the employer's freedom and responsibilities as well as the employee's, it appears that this sort of policy is justifiable. I do am not so sure the same thing would hold true of a government policy implementing the same sort of thing. And I am less sure of this with regards to weight than I am smoking, as I still believe our idea of "overweight" is off kilter (note I also still admit I need to loose some weight. Just not as much as the federal definitions would require.).
