Where There's Smoke, They're Fired
Okay, so Weyco, Inc., a Michigan health care company, fired four employees for refusing to submit to a medical test for cigarette smoking. Not for smoking in the office, not for allowing cigarette breaks to interfere with their work, not even for smoking at all. Just for the suspicion of smoking. Off hours. At home.
The employees have filed a lawsuit, on the grounds that compelling employees to abandon legal behavior in the privacy of their own homes is a flagrant abuse of labor, but Weyco is sticking to its guns. According to MSNBC, “Company founder Howard Weyers has said the anti-smoking rule was designed to shield the firm from high health care costs. “I don’t want to pay for the results of smoking,” he said.” Apparently, Weyco is unable to adjust salaries to reflect the inclusion of health insurance among employee benefits, so the company must suffer grievous, even business-threatening, financial losses insuring the smokers.
Well, good for Weyers. Why should his company pay one red cent more than it has to, simply because employees have a life beyond the office? But I say his policies don’t go far enough. Any employee receiving health benefits should be regularly policed for the slightest health risk and fired for the slightest infraction – or indeed, for the slightest suspicion of infraction, including a refusal to be tested. Executives and owners, I suppose, might not depend on company health benefits, but this does not excuse them! Indeed, company executives should be held to an even higher standard than mere rank and file. Quite apart from any moral obligation to set an example, hours lost to health problems are far more serious among management. The time they put in is far more valuable per hour than employees’; that’s why they earn higher salaries. Any executive who has ever smoked a cigarette should immediately be jettisoned without further compensation.
But are cigarettes the only threat to our health? No, no, a thousand times, no! Weyco executives should submit to weekly tests to see if they have consumed red meat, or eaten a bag of potato chips. High-fat, high-salt foods pose a serious risk to long-term health. If an executive should miss an important meeting while being rushed to emergency bypass surgery, Weyco’s profits will suffer. This is inexcusable.
Caffeine increases heart risks. Weyco employees should be tested weekly to determine if they have been ingesting this dangerous, if legal, drug. A single coffee, in the office or out, is grounds for immediate termination, as would be an unwillingness to submit to tests.
Skeptics will question whether chemical testing for all these health risks is reliable. They are quite right to voice their concern. Where simple urine tests are insufficient, Weyco should hire watchdogs – literal and figurative – to police its employees, and a fully-armed strike team, reserved for executives’ private homes, should be prepared to shoot any violators. Weyco’s stockholders should demand no less.
Don’t forget insufficient exercise. Any Weyco employee unable to run five miles a day is not everything an employee could be. Why should Weyco foot the bill for flabby, listless workers? The health benefits administrator, realizing the importance of this program, will surely be willing to raise the bar with a ten-mile run each morning.
Marriage has lasting health benefits, reducing stress and prolonging life. All Weyco employees should be required to be married. Any employee not married within a year deserves a pink-slip.
Religion, too, has a statistical correlation with long life and lasting health. Any Weyco employee unable to provide two witnesses to weekly attendance at the church of his choice should be fired. Any administrator unable to do so should reimburse the company fully 1/365th of his annual salary for each service missed. If the health benefits administrator is negligent in this important duty, he should be shot through the head.
I am sure any sensible person will recognize the enormous financial benefits of these policies and their thorough enforcement. Their adoption will no doubt boost investor confidence and cause employee morale to skyrocket, knowing their employers take such keen interest in their welfare. Widespread use could cause a veritable renaissance in corporate America. But my program will only work if applied from the top, where poor health has a disproportionate impact on profitability. I sleep better at night knowing Weyco management, undoubtedly more conscious of health benefits than I, must be preparing to place itself under the strictest of health programs, the better to serve Weyco.