Is it really time to sack smokers?

If you want to know about employment matters log on to Personnel Today. They have a very good selection of informative articles on smoking in the workforce and smoking by members of the workforce.

On 6 May they ran an article Smoking is not the only addiction that must be tackled in the workplace in which the following mainstream advice was given to employers: "…you should adopt a robust approach to your recruitment strategy and find out at an early stage whether a candidate is a smoker, or likes more than a glass of shandy after work. If so, reject them - unless you are prepared to spend the time tackling future issues that may arise."

These major issues are productivity and absentee losses associated with smoking and alcohol related accidents in the workplace.

This is already being done by some employers. A Sunday Times October 3, 2004 Job vacant ... but not for smokers explained: "BRITISH companies have started to refuse to employ smokers, even if they promise not to indulge their habit during working hours." It reports Kalamazoo-UCS of Northfield, Birmingham that employs 400 people and Kershen-Fairfax, a London accountancy firm as leaders."

Using google "smoking sacking" gives a good introduction to such trends.

Personnel Today’s Employment law: smoking ban special 26 June is cautious about sacking existing smokers "Sacking someone because they smoke in their spare time would be an unfair dismissal…" but as they go on to point out of the United States "… twenty states give employers the right to sack employees who smoke away from work in their own time."

The European Commission provides no protection for smokers. According to Commission equal opportunities spokesperson Katharina von Schnurbein "The Commission can legislate on age, disability, sexual orientation, religion, race and gender . For all other areas, it's the member state's responsibility."

Under these circumstances civil liberties group Liberty and Law is asking the Commission for Racial Equality [CRE] and the Equal Opportunities Commission [EOC] to investigate any companies who refuse to employ smokers as well as any recruitment companies or media outlets that accept advertisements proclaiming such discriminatory intent.

Companies refusing to take on smokers are certain to be indirectly sexually and racially discriminatory because of the differential smoking patterns related to the sex and race of Britain’s workforce. The penalties for such discrimination are potentially massive and trade unions can be expected to support affected members at employment tribunals.

Action on Smoking and Health, ASH provides evidence of widely differential smoking patterns by race and sex. It shows that Bangladeshi men for example under a no smoking regime will be turned down almost twice as frequently as Chinese men. Irish women will be turned down 13 times more frequently than Bangladeshi women.

Liberty and Law is contacting recruitment companies to check that they have not and will not accept commissions from companies that refuse to hire people who smoke outside working hours and that they will report such companies to the CRE and the EOC.

It will also directly report companies advertising their intention to exclude smokers to the CRE the EOC and libertarian smoking rights group Forest.

http://www.forestonline.org/output/page209.asp

Liberty and Law director Gerald Hartup stated: “We must have zero tolerance of businesses that would indulge in repressive bullying. Their hectoring intolerance must be stubbed out. If necessary they need to suffer the consequences of their anti-social pretensions in the courts or in other ways that affect their bottom lines.”