posted 2007/03/29 at 21:08
I want to thank everyone who responded to my last post about my internal deliberations about whether or not to work for a company that refuses to hire smokers. You've certainly given me a lot to think about here.
I suppose I should relate a part of the discussion I had with my family regarding this matter last night. Mark, my British brother-in-law, was quick to point out how different employment laws are in England. At the bank he used to work at, the bosses wanted to get rid of a worker without cause, which isn't exactly legal there. In order to sack this worker, the company would either have to show a demonstrable reason for why the employee deserved to be fired, or make him redundant (aka downsize him). The bank couldn't come up with a good reason to fire him, so they made his position redundant, then turned right around and hired someone new to fill his old position. The fired worker then went right to the courts, showed that he'd been wrongfully terminated, won his case and was put back in his old position.
I mention this because I think it underscores one of the big problems I have with the American socio-economic-political system, which is how much trust and power we give to our companies. I do identify myself as a capitalist because I think "the profit motivation" is ultimately necessary in order for a society to produce substantial innovation, but at the same time I think capitalist markets need strong government controls over them in order to make sure that workers are treated fairly, consumers aren't sold dangerous products, and companies don't leverage and horde their huge sums of money to the detriment of the greater populace. If companies control the primary means for employment in a society, and employment is the only way for the population to gain capital, then companies have a responsibility to be fair and equitable in their methods of employment.
I'm certainly not going to question that smoking is an unhealthy and disgusting habit, but whether we like it or not, it is legal. Illegalizing tobacco use in the United States would take every bad aspect of the misguided "war on drugs" we've been fighting for the past twenty years and amplify it fifty-fold, dwarfing the crap we got into when we tried Prohibition in the last century. People shouldn't smoke, and I don't like being around people who smoke, but it is a choice that people in this country (of a certain age) are legally entitled to make, and as strong a supporter I am of smoke-free workplace laws, telling employees that they can't even smoke in their own homes smacks to me of Big Brother wrapped up in a capitalist cloak.
What worries me most is that even if the rules on smoking at this company don't affect me, the fact that they would regulate the private lives of their employees -- something I think no company has any conscionable right to do, particularly concerning a citizen's legal rights -- what else might they try to regulate? What would stop this company from firing me because they see me playing one of my dancing video games at the arcade and they think that people my age shouldn't be playing video games? What would stop this company from firing me because I'm a vegetarian and I don't get some of the nutrients that are found only in animal flesh? What's to stop any company, at least in the states where there aren't laws governing how much control employers can exert over their employees' private lives, from dictating exactly how I spend my time off of the company's clock?
Perhaps my issue isn't so much with this one company and its "we won't hire you if you smoke" rule as it is with the lack of employee protection laws in this country and the general attitude of the power elite in this country that big business and big money are the solutions to every problem, but it is still a very big issue in my mind right now. I feel like if I don't raise some hell about this, things will only get worse for everyone. Believe me, I know how ironic it is to be saying that in terms of me defending the right to smoke, but there is a general principle involved here that is causing this dilemma to put me completely on edge.
With all due respect, what the hell are you as an unemployed college graduate going to do about taking away companies rights to choose what type of worker they wish to employ?
Isn't it time to stop complaining about things and time to start doing things, and make yourself into a person who's opinion actually has some weight behind it?
copyright © 2008 Sean Shannon