Is Your Privacy Going Up in Smoke?
Ok, so you don’t like cigarette smoke. Join the crowd. Even a lot of smokers don’t like it. But that’s the problem – it’s an addiction. One that, if some employers have their way, will cost smokers their jobs even if they never take a puff at work and only smoke at home.
Thousands of smokers are now, or should be, afraid for their jobs due to an apparent new trend by employers. In early 2005 Weyco, a firm in Michigan, adopted a “zero-tolerance” policy towards smoking. Four women smokers have already been fired. The women had to sign a document declining a “voluntary” nicotine test and admitting they were smokers. The document read in part: “I understand that by self-identifying myself as a tobacco user, I will be relieved of my duties immediately.” The women were then escorted off the premises.
In administering its “policy,” the company issues random nicotine tests. If someone tests positive, he or she is automatically fired. No ifs, and certainly no butts. It’s an incredible invasion of privacy and could well embolden other employers to have similar bans such as forbidding from afar your evening cocktail at home before or after dinner.
Even if you don’t smoke you should be wary. A political and legal tempest is brewing as privacy issues face new obstacles in an uncertain legislative environment. Our firm believes in freedom from invasion of any entity, including government. Regardless, no employer has the right to reach into the privacy of one’s home or personal life away from work. (You spend enough time as it is at the office, dedicating your efforts to corporate or bureaucratic benefit.)
No person or judge should stand for the invasion of any governmental or corporate entity into one’s private home. If your company adopts such a policy, please contact a qualified employment lawyer immediately. While the term “slippery slope” does get abused, it also does have teeth. So should the law in preventing such privacy abuses.
