{"id":678,"date":"2020-02-11T19:17:42","date_gmt":"2020-02-11T19:17:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/som\/?p=678"},"modified":"2021-03-05T15:02:58","modified_gmt":"2021-03-05T15:02:58","slug":"dear-professor-can-an-employer-fire-me-or-refuse-to-hire-me-for-being-a-smoker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/som\/2020\/02\/11\/dear-professor-can-an-employer-fire-me-or-refuse-to-hire-me-for-being-a-smoker\/","title":{"rendered":"Dear Professor: Can an employer fire me or refuse to hire me for being a smoker?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p> Posted by\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.umflint.edu\/som\/alexis-menard\">Alexis Menard<\/a>\u00a0on February 11, 2020 at 2:15 pm <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dear Professor:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Q: <\/strong>Can an employer fire me or refuse to hire me for being a smoker? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>A: <\/strong>First distinguish between smoking at work and smoking off-premises.\u00a0 Employers can ban smoking, including vaping, at work and on the job site.\u00a0 Beyond that, some employers wish to refuse to hire or wish to fire smokers for three reasons: smokers impose higher health-care premiums and costs than non-smokers, smokers are less productive on the job (taking smoke breaks), and smokers have a higher absentee rate.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Protection for smoking off-premises depends on which state your employer is located.\u00a0 There is no federal law declaring smokers a \u201cprotected class\u201d under discrimination laws.\u00a0 You must look to the local laws for the answer. \u00a0Washington, D.C. and 29 states have enacted legislation which provides smokers some protection.\u00a0 The protection either directly includes smoking or is wrapped in language that protects workers from adverse actions for off-duty conduct, be it smoking or other activities (California, Colorado, New York, North Carolina).\u00a0 See <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Smoker_protection_law\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Smoker_protection_law<\/a> for a list of state statutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There may be variations in the applicability of the laws,\ndepending on whether the employer is public or private, how many workers are\nemployed by the employer, and whether a union contract addresses the issue.&nbsp; As with other discrimination protection laws,\nthere are exceptions if safety is involved or if a \u201cBFOQ\u201d exists. A BFOQ is a\nbona fide occupational requirement that makes a ban legitimate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Francine Cullari, MA, MBA, JD<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;(If you have a\nquestion of general interest in any area of business, send your inquiry to <a href=\"mailto:fcullari@umich.edu\">fcullari@umich.edu<\/a>.&nbsp; An answer will be posted in the immediately\nsubsequent issue. Individual advice is not offered in this forum.&nbsp; The opinion is that of the professor\nanswering your question and not necessarily that of SOM or UM.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Posted by\u00a0Alexis Menard\u00a0on February 11, 2020 at 2:15 pm Dear Professor: Q: Can an employer fire me or refuse to hire me for being a smoker? A: First distinguish between smoking at work and smoking off-premises.\u00a0 Employers can ban smoking, including vaping, at work and on the job site.\u00a0 Beyond that, some employers wish to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":409,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/som\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/som\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/som\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/som\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/409"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/som\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=678"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/som\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":679,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/som\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678\/revisions\/679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/som\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/som\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/som\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}