Richard Bonifacio, Angie Casas, D’Andra Moody, Latrice Todd
Prof. Shazia Ali
Management 3330
3 May 2012
Should Smokers Be a Protected Class in the Application Process? Smoking policies are argued about across the nation. What someone does off the job and outside of their work hours should not condemn them or cost them their job. On January 24th, the Associated Press reported Newbern police Sergeant James Bishop, of Tennessee Police Department, was terminated for smoking after 17 years on the police force (“Police Officer Fired”). Some may question why Sgt. Bishop was not written up prior to being fired, but the answer is simple; policies have prohibited smoking in municipal offices or buildings. The purpose of our presentation is to shed light on the pros and cons of the smoking policies at the Dallas-based Health Care System. We will focus on the employer’s and employee’s perspective of: Increasing insurance costs vs. disease/addiction, clean work environment vs. anti-smoke bans, and lastly wellness/pro-health vs. discrimination against smokers as a class of people. Baylor officials claim smoking is one of the reasons health insurance premiums are constantly rising for Americans. Over the past few years, various employees have been adapting to the smoking policies, which has become a more prevalent issue. The challenge for employers, however, resides in staying within legal and ethical boundaries when addressing such issues. Presently, a growing number of employers are requiring employees who use tobacco to pay higher premiums, hoping that will motivate more of them to stop smoking. Existing employees of Baylor who smoke are paying a surcharge of $50 a year. In January 2012 a new plan took effect, increasing the fee to $650 per year, and will apply to any family members who smoke that are covered by the employee’s insurance (Jacobson). The increase