Found this in the news this morning. What are your opinions?
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Health Care Company That Fired Smokers Also Targeting Fat
Weyers Won't Fire Employees For Obesity
POSTED: 10:20 am EST January 27, 2005
A Michigan health care company that fired four employees for smoking is also targeting fat.
Howard Weyers, the founder of Weyco Inc., said he wants to tell fat workers to lose weight or else, Reuters reported.
Weyers brought in weight experts to speak with employees, according to Reuters. The company also offers employees a $35 monthly incentive for joining a health club and $65 for meeting fitness goals.
But the company isn't planning to fire employees for unhealthy lifestyle choices, according to a Weyco news release.
"Anyone concerned about limiting employers' rights to specify terms of employment should know that federal law protects people with conditions like obesity, alcoholism and AIDS. But there's no right to indulge in tobacco," the news release said.
Four Weyco employees were fired after the company enacted a new policy this month, allowing workers to be fired if they smoke, even if the smoking takes place after hours or at home.
The four employees were fired for refusing to take a test to determine whether they smoke. Weyers said the company doesn't want to pay the higher health care costs associated with smoking.
An official of the company -- which administers health benefits -- estimated that 18 to 20 of its 200 employees were smokers when the policy was first announced in 2003. As many as 14 of them quit smoking before the policy went into effect.
The company's Web site states:
Weyco Inc. is a non-smoking company that strongly supports its employees in living healthy lifestyles.
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In Fitness and Friendship,
Mahler
__________________ In Fitness & Friendship, MAHLER
______________________________ __________________________ There is no light at the end of the tunnel. You carry the light with you.
The fitness incentives are a great idea. I think firing employees for smoking is going way too far. Unless they are like a lot of the smokers around here, and spend about 50% of their day on smoke breaks. Of course, they probably spend less time playing on the internet!
I agree that firing someone is going too far, but I personally would NEVER hire someone in the first place who was a smoker. Given my industry though, that's not surprising.
If they set up internal wellness programs and gave people incentives for good habits they would probably realize a lot more success. Make insurance cheaper for those who take care of themselves, instead of having to share the burden with someone who treats their body like crap with bad diets and smoking.
They could even create opportunities within the work day to give 15 minute "walk" breaks (instead of smoke breaks). It doesn't seem fair that smokers get to take so much time off from work to go outside and smoke while nonsmokers are staying hard at work at their desks.
My biggest complaint about smokers is that they dont' consider their butts to be litter, and they just chunk them out their windows, or on the sidewalk. I think smoking should be banned in all public places, but they should be able to smoke in the privacy of their homes, as long as they dispose of their butts properly.
My biggest complaint about smokers is that they dont' consider their butts to be litter, and they just chunk them out their windows, or on the sidewalk.
You and me both. While I was in college I worked for Papa Johns delivering pizzas. My supervisor at the time asked me to clean up the cigarette buds that are out in front of the store which is where the employees would take their smoke breaks. I refused, when I stated my reason the supervisor understood and then asked one the employees that smoked to do it. Cigarette butts are very nasty when you consider where they have been, it is highly inconsiderate that smokers throw their cigarette butts where ever. Just another reason I support a public smoking ban.
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