Man fired for smoking at home

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ITA

>>The argument that anything is automatically good is dangerous.<<

What everybody needs to understand is that good and bad are a completely different thing from legal and illegal. Sure, they may tie in in some cases, but more often than not will leave many dissatisfied.

Oh yeah, I can already smell aroma of barbequed frog legs right now.

You think it's coincidental that the same companies giving a big "F-U" to their employees' rights are the ones shipping most of the good jobs overseas and laying off workers left and right? There's a good reason why they're leaving us mostly with low-wage crap jobs that have us a paycheck away from homelessness. It's to keep us in line by making us more dependant on them so we'll be too afraid to speak up. After all, if they decide to let us go for sneezing too hard, where are we gonna go? We need their jobs to have a means to pay for those little extras like, say, eating.

So like farm animals, we can't run away because however miserable we feel in captivity, we're too domesticated to survive without the benevolence of the corporation who, like the farmer, will eventually slaughter us anyway.

But you forget one thing, We the employee are also allowed to show as much loyalty to the employer that they show to us. I remember months back that there was an article on CNN about employers getting mad at employees who put their resume as available on sites such as Monster.com. There was a backlash toward the article to the effect that if the employer wants the employment contract to be at will, then the employee has the same right.

Employers would like it if the employee had no other option but that is not true in US society and I think there would be a huge backlash in the US if the government tried to set things up where the employer has the right to get rid of someone at will but the employee does not have that same right.

O_O

I don't care if someone smokes at home, that's their right. Their right to look stupid, their right to ruin their respatory, nervous, and cuculitory systems.

But what is because their smoking at home costs your employer more money due to health issues that you lose your job because the employer cannot pay the costs and you too?

((BTW, the O_O of mine was at the article not you, sorry))

Anyway, if they can't pay the costs, they shouldn't be smoking.

I suppose that's an acceptable reason for job loss, but only if it's utterly overwhelming.

I don't think that anyone is debating the societal costs of smoking. If someone wants to smoke, let them pay more for their insurance premium.

Also, just out of curiosity - did this guy even have health insurance?? A lot of these blue collar jobs don't even offer it, so the whole debate over health care costs could be moot.

I NEED TO DROP NAPALM ON THE LAWN CARE COMPANY!! !! !



I AM THE 666

The reason they fired him was because the company has to pay his health care insurance, and smokers on average cost more.

If the governments of Canada, the US and Europe had an ounce of sense and were truly committed to getting people to stop smoking, they'd subsidise smoking-cessation measures.
In light of the fact that they have not, this whole 'Stop smoking cuz Uncle Sam says it's bad' is just lip-service. They're still in the pockets of the tobacco industry. Business as usual.

Not that they had any business firing him anyway, but the reason that he had the high nicotine levels was because he was using nicotine patches to try to stop smoking.

I work Monday to Friday, 8:00 am to 4:30 pm, with a 30-minute lunch break. I usually arrive about 7:45 am and am off company property by 4:35 most days. What I do when I'm not at work and not on company property is none of my employer's business. Thank goodness the Canadian Human Rights Commission has ruled that workplace drug testing is an unwarranted invasion of privacy unless someone works in a profession where public safety may be an issue (eg, long-distance truck driver).

I feel the same way unfortunately in the US drug testing for employment is becoming very common. The company I worked for before starting my own business now requires it.