Fla. Companies Fire Workers Who Smoke at HOME

http://www.local6.com/health/14537611/detail.html?taf=orlpn

Fla. Companies Forbid Smoking In Private Lives

POSTED: 11:41 pm EST November 7, 2007

ORLANDO, Fla. -- A growing number of companies in Florida are forbidding

their workers from smoking not only at work, but also in their private

lives.

Westgate Resorts, the largest private employer in Central Florida, has

banned smoking and won't budge from a policy of not hiring smokers and

firing employees who do smoke.

"When I found out it was legal to discriminate against smokers, I put the

policy in place," Westgate president and CEO David Seigel said.

"If you are too stupid to understand that smoking is going to kill you,

then we are going to tell you that if you want to work for our company,

you will not smoke," Seigel said.

Central Floridian Ava Bryant said she was called by a recruiter for

Westgate and told not to come in for an interview because Westgate won't

hire smokers.

"I call it discrimination," Bryant said. "I'm not an avid smoker or a

constant smoker. I just said I smoke. Sometimes I may pick up a cigarette

and smoke."

But Local 6 reporter Steven Cooper reported that at Westgate,

"sometimes" is one time too many.

Seigel said his policy is cost effective and said since it went into

effect, health insurance claims have gone down significantly -- making

insurance more affordable for employees.

(snip)

------------------------

Fine with me. Lets have the same policy for fatties and homos and

alcoholics and drunk drivers. I'm sick of paying for other employee's

reckless habits.

speedie sez:

"Fine with me. Lets have the same policy for fatties and homos and

alcoholics and drunk drivers. I'm sick of paying for other employee's

reckless habits..."

____________________________

Oh, Speedie, you just committed a cardinal sin and went over the edge to

politically incorrect discrimination.

You said, "Lets have the same policy for fatties and homos and alcoholics

and drunk drivers."

You should know that homos are a federally protected class.

As soon as the poofer puffers claim holy homo status, the Westgate company

will be forced to buy their smokes and let them light up in the heart of the

flamable areas.

Docky Wocky wrote:

> speedie sez:

>

> "Fine with me. Lets have the same policy for fatties and homos and

> alcoholics and drunk drivers. I'm sick of paying for other employee's

> reckless habits..."

> ____________________________

> Oh, Speedie, you just committed a cardinal sin and went over the edge

> to politically incorrect discrimination.

>

> You said, "Lets have the same policy for fatties and homos and

> alcoholics and drunk drivers."

>

> You should know that homos are a federally protected class.

>

> As soon as the poofer puffers claim holy homo status, the Westgate

> company will be forced to buy their smokes and let them light up in

> the heart of the flamable areas.

In group health insurance

provided by and paid for

in part by employers, smokers

increase the cost of health

care disproportionately.

When I was in a position

of hiring and firing I would

NOT hire a smoker.

We had enough trouble

finding cost effective

health insurance without

adding to our problems.

This isn't politics.

Sid9 wrote:

> Docky Wocky wrote:

>> speedie sez:

>>

>> "Fine with me. Lets have the same policy for fatties and homos and

>> alcoholics and drunk drivers. I'm sick of paying for other

>> employee's reckless habits..."

>> ____________________________

>> Oh, Speedie, you just committed a cardinal sin and went over the edge

>> to politically incorrect discrimination.

>>

>> You said, "Lets have the same policy for fatties and homos and

>> alcoholics and drunk drivers."

>>

>> You should know that homos are a federally protected class.

>>

>> As soon as the poofer puffers claim holy homo status, the Westgate

>> company will be forced to buy their smokes and let them light up in

>> the heart of the flamable areas.

>

>

> In group health insurance

> provided by and paid for

> in part by employers, smokers

> increase the cost of health

> care disproportionately.

>

> When I was in a position

> of hiring and firing I would

> NOT hire a smoker.

>

> We had enough trouble

> finding cost effective

> health insurance without

> adding to our problems.

>

> This isn't politics.

Then why hire folks who eat fast food? Or is it ok to die of heart disease

but not lung diseases? Shut down Mickey D's I say!!

--

When people are engaged in something they are not proud of, they do

not welcome witnesses. In fact, they come to believe the witness causes

the trouble. ___John Steinbeck

Ellis_Jay

ellis_jay wrote:

> Sid9 wrote:

>> Docky Wocky wrote:

>>> speedie sez:

>>>

>>> "Fine with me. Lets have the same policy for fatties and homos and

>>> alcoholics and drunk drivers. I'm sick of paying for other

>>> employee's reckless habits..."

>>> ____________________________

>>> Oh, Speedie, you just committed a cardinal sin and went over the

>>> edge to politically incorrect discrimination.

>>>

>>> You said, "Lets have the same policy for fatties and homos and

>>> alcoholics and drunk drivers."

>>>

>>> You should know that homos are a federally protected class.

>>>

>>> As soon as the poofer puffers claim holy homo status, the Westgate

>>> company will be forced to buy their smokes and let them light up in

>>> the heart of the flamable areas.

>>

>>

>> In group health insurance

>> provided by and paid for

>> in part by employers, smokers

>> increase the cost of health

>> care disproportionately.

>>

>> When I was in a position

>> of hiring and firing I would

>> NOT hire a smoker.

>>

>> We had enough trouble

>> finding cost effective

>> health insurance without

>> adding to our problems.

>>

>> This isn't politics.

>

> Then why hire folks who eat fast food? Or is it ok to die of heart

> disease but not lung diseases? Shut down Mickey D's I say!!

Smoking is far more

dangerous than a

hamburger

On Nov 9, 6:18 pm, "ellis_jay" <ellis_...@firstbase.coma> wrote:

> Sid9 wrote:

> > Docky Wocky wrote:

> >> speedie sez:

>

> >> "Fine with me. Lets have the same policy for fatties and homos and

> >> alcoholics and drunk drivers. I'm sick of paying for other

> >> employee's reckless habits..."

> >> ____________________________

> >> Oh, Speedie, you just committed a cardinal sin and went over the edge

> >> to politically incorrect discrimination.

>

> >> You said, "Lets have the same policy for fatties and homos and

> >> alcoholics and drunk drivers."

>

> >> You should know that homos are a federally protected class.

>

> >> As soon as the poofer puffers claim holy homo status, the Westgate

> >> company will be forced to buy their smokes and let them light up in

> >> the heart of the flamable areas.

>

> > In group health insurance

> > provided by and paid for

> > in part by employers, smokers

> > increase the cost of health

> > care disproportionately.

>

> > When I was in a position

> > of hiring and firing I would

> > NOT hire a smoker.

>

> > We had enough trouble

> > finding cost effective

> > health insurance without

> > adding to our problems.

>

> > This isn't politics.

>

> Then why hire folks who eat fast food? Or is it ok to die of heart disease

> but not lung diseases? Shut down Mickey D's I say!!

>

More smokers die from cardio-vascular diseases

than of cancers.

My father died at 60 while smoking a cigarrette, of

a heart attack.

On Fri, 9 Nov 2007 19:34:01 -0500, "Sid9" <sid9@bellsouth.net> wrote:

>ellis_jay wrote:

>> Sid9 wrote:

>>> Docky Wocky wrote:

>>>> speedie sez:

>>>>

>>>> "Fine with me. Lets have the same policy for fatties and homos and

>>>> alcoholics and drunk drivers. I'm sick of paying for other

>>>> employee's reckless habits..."

>>>> ____________________________

>>>> Oh, Speedie, you just committed a cardinal sin and went over the

>>>> edge to politically incorrect discrimination.

>>>>

>>>> You said, "Lets have the same policy for fatties and homos and

>>>> alcoholics and drunk drivers."

>>>>

>>>> You should know that homos are a federally protected class.

>>>>

>>>> As soon as the poofer puffers claim holy homo status, the Westgate

>>>> company will be forced to buy their smokes and let them light up in

>>>> the heart of the flamable areas.

>>>

>>>

>>> In group health insurance

>>> provided by and paid for

>>> in part by employers, smokers

>>> increase the cost of health

>>> care disproportionately.

>>>

>>> When I was in a position

>>> of hiring and firing I would

>>> NOT hire a smoker.

>>>

>>> We had enough trouble

>>> finding cost effective

>>> health insurance without

>>> adding to our problems.

>>>

>>> This isn't politics.

>>

>> Then why hire folks who eat fast food? Or is it ok to die of heart

>> disease but not lung diseases? Shut down Mickey D's I say!!

>

>Smoking is far more

>dangerous than a

>hamburger

That depends on how much e.coli is in the burger.

The history of liberty and its progress in America and elsewhere is

often as much about controlling employers' and other private power and

its abuses as it is about controlling government and its power.

As a nonsmoker, I abhor smoking. And few if any of us would question

employers' prerogatives to regulate the conduct of employees while on

duty and/or on employer premises, but we're here dealing with an

entirely different issue.

The notion that a private employer could lawfully act like an

unaccountable, overreaching government by seeking to dictate these or

any other personal choices I or anyone else might make while off duty

and off employer premises has frightening implications for your, my,

and everyone else's freedom and privacy.

As with government, once private employers are allowed to dictate any

one aspect of one's private life, where does it stop?

So who does Westgate Resorts president and CEO David Siegel think he

is? Is Westgate Resorts in America?

As Alexander Hamilton wrote over 200 years ago, the power over a

person's subsistence is a power over that person's will.

Following Siegel's and his company's apparent "reasoning," why not

require employees and job applicants to submit to employer monitoring-

don't laugh; the technology for this is already widely available!-of

whatever they, even (indeed, especially) on their own time and off

employer premises, read, watch, or listen to; who they associate with

and what kinds of organizations they participate in; what Web sites

they visit and what they send or receive online; and the like?

We can't have employees who dare to write or read online or other

letters like this one or otherwise explore, much less spread, ideas

about "controversial matters" that the employer might not like, such

as notions about fairer tax policies and a stronger "social safety

net," or-horror of horrors-about (gasp!) employees and job applicants

actually having rights and about even daring to regulate business to

stop privacy abuses, pay inequities, the destruction of health-care,

pension, and other benefits, or the like, now, can we? Gotta protect

that almighty bottom line and the freedom to select our employees and

run our business as we see fit!

At the center of such out-of-control employers' concerns over

employees' and applicants' off-the-job lives, there seems to be an

overreaching "need" to make sure that only the "right" types of people

are hired, perhaps in the name of making sure employees have the

"right" attitudes and, to use that now-favorite corporate buzz word,

are a good "fit" (read: are sufficiently cowed and properly docile to

accept existing abuses and any possible future ones the employer might

decide to inflict).

In general, employees' and job applicants' activities outside of

working hours and off employers' premises are none of an employer's

business unless they pose an actual and substantial conflict of

interest or otherwise materially and substantially impair one's

ability to do one's job.

As National Workrights Institute legal director Jeremy Gruber has

noted, the actions of certain employers pose grave dangers for our

society, our freedoms, and for each of us. As he put it, employers who

delve into our lives outside of work "are making decisions based on

information not submitted by the employee or references. It is wholly

unrelated to the employment relationship."

What's more, Gruber added, "The idea that when you hire someone, you

should be able to look at every aspect of their personal life is

completely at odds of how a democratic society should operate. It has

huge consequences for freedom in this country, when people are afraid

or are changing their behavior because of what a potential future

employer might say or do."

Any society where this is so is not a truly free society.

At least as scary as employer efforts to snoop into and regulate

workers' off-hours, off-premises activities such as smoking are cases

where employers fire, demote, otherwise discipline, or refuse to hire

people based on such irrelevant things as their off-hours political or

social activities.

Employment discrimination based on one's off-the-job political

activities, indeed, seem to be rising to a level not known since the

era of McCarthyism, with its blacklisting and "political clearances."

For example, as has been widely reported, including in a story on

CBS's _60 Minutes_, an Alabama woman, Lynne Gobbell, was in 2004 fired

from her job at a manufacturing plant for having a John Kerry bumper

sticker on her personal car. (After the case made world headlines, she

was offered a job-indeed, one with health insurance-by the Kerry

campaign, but few employees thus treated are that fortunate.) In

Wisconsin,. meanwhile, William Niess, a real-estate broker, lost his

job after he failed to make a donation to the Republican Party

"requested" by his boss.

Is this how you want to live?

I didn't think so.

As a longtime political activist, I myself have found that many

people, especially in today's job-scarce economy, are now hesitant to

take part in any form of political activism-writing a letter to a

newspaper, calling a radio talk show, posting something on the

Internet, taking part in a march or a rally-for fear that an employer

might somehow frown on such actions. Today, the Internet and like

means make it frighteningly easy for employers to snoop into job

applicants' or employees' personal beliefs and activities.

This sleazy practice must be stopped through legislation like

California's, which specifically forbids employers from dictating or

attempting to dictate employees' political activity. Better yet, every

state and Congress should adopt legislation, as a few states

(including California, Colorado, and North Dakota) have, generally

protecting the right of employees and job applicants to engage in any

lawful off-hours, off-premises activities they choose without fear of

employment discrimination.

Ironically, the fear that many workers now have of employment

discrimination based on their political or other nonwork

activities--"lifestyle discrimination"--is the very thing that keeps

them from taking the steps, both as individuals and with others, to

bring about an end to Siegel's and related abuses. It is also a

significant brake on long-needed, long-overdue social and economic

progress in America-importantly, to efforts to stop this country's

headlong rush, especially under George W. Bush and his ilk, back to

the days of Herbert Hoover-indeed, of William McKinley.

It is not so much about that oh-so-sacred bottom line as it is about

power and control.

It is time to reclaim your and our rights-before they are lost

forever, before we are all forced to live at the mercy of twits like

David Siegel and other out-of-control employers in a nationwide or

even worldwide Stepford, a massive, high-tech "company town" that

controls not only our work tasks but our other actions, our minds, and

our souls "24/7."

As one person who responded elsewhere to Siegel's actions asked, would

Siegel and his company reject money if the investors who offered it

were smokers? As others have noted, if he next decides not to hire or

retain overweight people (apparently something lawful in most states),

will such a diktat apply to him as well?

We, the people, must-and will-take back our privacy and our rights

from out-of-control employers like Westgate Resorts and Siegel. I, for

one, will do all I can to avoid purchasing his products and services,

and I also will do all I lawfully can to make Siegel's arrogance and

stupidity known to others-and to urge others to take his actions into

account when themselves deciding whose products and services to buy

and use.

If you live in Florida or any other state where employers are still

free to intrude into your life away from work, write to your state

lawmakers and your governor this week, urging them to adopt

legislation that would ban employment discrimination against employees

and job applicants on the basis of lawful activities undertaken during

nonworking hours and off any employer premises. Get at least 10 other

residents of your state to do the same--this week.

Remember--without such legislation, you, your rights, and your job

could be next!

Scott Enk

Wisconsin

(where state law generally bans employment discrimination on account

of use or nonuse of lawful products during nonworking hours and off

employer premises!)

senk8105@sbcglobal.net

On Nov 8, 10:22 pm, "Docky Wocky" <mrch...@lst.net> wrote:

> speedie sez:

>

> "Fine with me. Lets have the same policy for fatties and homos and

> alcoholics and drunk drivers. I'm sick of paying for other employee's

> reckless habits..."

> ____________________________

> Oh, Speedie, you just committed a cardinal sin and went over the edge to

> politically incorrect discrimination.

>

> You said, "Lets have the same policy for fatties and homos and alcoholics

> and drunk drivers."

>

> You should know that homos are a federally protected class.

>

> As soon as the poofer puffers claim holy homo status, the Westgate company

> will be forced to buy their smokes and let them light up in the heart of the

> flamable areas.

That is so stupid

On 9 nov, 04:00, "Speeders & Drunk Drivers are MURDERERS"

<xeton2...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> http://www.local6.com/health/14537611/detail.html?taf=orlpn

>

> Fla. Companies Forbid Smoking In Private Lives

>

> POSTED: 11:41 pm EST November 7, 2007

>

> ORLANDO, Fla. -- A growing number of companies in Florida are forbidding

> their workers from smoking not only at work, but also in their private

> lives.

>

> Westgate Resorts, the largest private employer in Central Florida, has

> banned smoking and won't budge from a policy of not hiring smokers and

> firing employees who do smoke.

>

> "When I found out it was legal to discriminate against smokers, I put the

> policy in place," Westgate president and CEO David Seigel said.

>

> "If you are too stupid to understand that smoking is going to kill you,

> then we are going to tell you that if you want to work for our company,

> you will not smoke," Seigel said.

>

> Central Floridian Ava Bryant said she was called by a recruiter for

> Westgate and told not to come in for an interview because Westgate won't

> hire smokers.

>

> "I call it discrimination," Bryant said. "I'm not an avid smoker or a

> constant smoker. I just said I smoke. Sometimes I may pick up a cigarette

> and smoke."

>

> But Local 6 reporter Steven Cooper reported that at Westgate,

> "sometimes" is one time too many.

>

> Seigel said his policy is cost effective and said since it went into

> effect, health insurance claims have gone down significantly -- making

> insurance more affordable for employees.

>

> (snip)

>

> ------------------------

>

> Fine with me. Lets have the same policy for fatties and homos and

> alcoholics and drunk drivers. I'm sick of paying for other employee's

> reckless habits.

Ah... the biggest democracy in the world... the "freest" country in

the world...

Way to go...

What's next: prisoners' camp? death penalty? legalization of torture?

wiretapping?

Your country is so pathetic... it would be the laughing stock of the

entire world if it weren't so dangerous...

On Nov 12, 5:09 am, parsifa...@gmail.com wrote:

> On 9 nov, 04:00, "Speeders & Drunk Drivers are MURDERERS"

>

>

>

> <xeton2...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> >http://www.local6.com/health/14537611/detail.html?taf=orlpn

>

> > Fla. Companies Forbid Smoking In Private Lives

>

> > POSTED: 11:41 pm EST November 7, 2007

>

> > ORLANDO, Fla. -- A growing number of companies in Florida are forbidding

> > their workers from smoking not only at work, but also in their private

> > lives.

>

> > Westgate Resorts, the largest private employer in Central Florida, has

> > banned smoking and won't budge from a policy of not hiring smokers and

> > firing employees who do smoke.

>

> > "When I found out it was legal to discriminate against smokers, I put the

> > policy in place," Westgate president and CEO David Seigel said.

>

> > "If you are too stupid to understand that smoking is going to kill you,

> > then we are going to tell you that if you want to work for our company,

> > you will not smoke," Seigel said.

>

> > Central Floridian Ava Bryant said she was called by a recruiter for

> > Westgate and told not to come in for an interview because Westgate won't

> > hire smokers.

>

> > "I call it discrimination," Bryant said. "I'm not an avid smoker or a

> > constant smoker. I just said I smoke. Sometimes I may pick up a cigarette

> > and smoke."

>

> > But Local 6 reporter Steven Cooper reported that at Westgate,

> > "sometimes" is one time too many.

>

> > Seigel said his policy is cost effective and said since it went into

> > effect, health insurance claims have gone down significantly -- making

> > insurance more affordable for employees.

>

> > (snip)

>

> > ------------------------

>

> > Fine with me. Lets have the same policy for fatties and homos and

> > alcoholics and drunk drivers. I'm sick of paying for other employee's

> > reckless habits.

>

> Ah... the biggest democracy in the world... the "freest" country in

> the world...

> Way to go...

> What's next: prisoners' camp? death penalty? legalization of torture?

> wiretapping?

> Your country is so pathetic... it would be the laughing stock of the

> entire world if it weren't so dangerous...

Actually, the country is SO free that a person can hire whom ever he

wants.