Cleveland Clinic completely non-smoking....

I think it is great that he gave McDonald's the boot. But I don't think that as an employer they can, say, ban employees from crossing the street to get McDonalds for lunch or eating on the way to or from work. Just like I don't think they should require employees to have a certain BMI to work there. I'm all for encouraging workplace wellness but mandating what people do in their free time seems excessive. As long as smoking is legal, I think an employee can smoke after they leave work. Same for other risky behaviors like riding a motorcycle, skydiving, rock climbing, etc. Though I will concede that smoking is more dangerous and doesn't have an positives associated with it (like rock climbing with exercise).

[samssugarmomma]

We are "tobacco free" as well - which means that no employees can even smell like smoke while they are at work. Are you sure that that isn't what they meant?

When HR / management started this policy in January, there were all kinds of company sponsored treatment programs that employees could join to help break the habit.

Since I don't smoke, I didn't look to closely at what the punishment is if you get caught smoking / smelling like smoke. I think you get a few warnings before you get the boot.

[samssugarmomma]

As long as they're at-will employees, I don't think that "smoker" is a protected class, so I'm not sure what rights they are taking away.

I mean, it's not like you have a right to employment. They can keep smoking, just not while having that job.

ITA - there is no "right" to employment.

[poky]

C'mon Poky - THAT's not a bad neighborhood (not a great one, but if you're out in daylight you should be fine).

I didn't say it was bad, just not great. DH did mention something about smokers on breaks across the street from the clinic getting mugged. I have no idea how much truth there was to that.

I'm all for encouraging workplace wellness but mandating what people do in their free time seems excessive.

In a similar vein - DH's current employer does this. Our health insurance costs more b/c he is a smoker. $30/pay! We all know how I feel about dh's smoking ... sadly this doesn't discourage him at all. I don't begrudge the company at all -- I know $60/month is a drop in the bucket against the actual costs.

Kate - I've heard enough about the policy at the Clinic to know that they mean smoking - at all. At home, at work, at all. They're testing for it.

[samssugarmomma]

Wow Jenn! That is bold!

[DCJenn]

We test our clients for every drug known to man EXCEPT nicotine (mostly because it's obvious that they'd all test positive). I'll have to ask why it's OK to get on them for alcohol but not nicotine when I'd argue that alcohol is at least as damaging for the long-term addict as any of the other substances we test for.


Hmmmm, time to play stump the psychiatrist at work today.

Jenn

[SuzySunshine]

I see your point Tara and I guess because I fall in the non-obese, non-smoking category I think they should both be regulated in someway.

IMO the faulty party with smoking has and always will be the tobacco companies. As long as its legal people can do what they want as long as it doesn't impose 2nd hand smoke on everyone else.

[SuzySunshine]

I don't care if you're fat, climb Mount Hood during a blizzard and have to be rescued, or smoke. It's your life. But I shouldn't have to pay for your poor choices. I take reasonably good care of myself and believe that everyone who is able to, should.

ITA!

[MissCrabette]

Lily, I had to give you a hug because you just expressed my feelings on the topic. I couldn't have said it better.

However .... (and moving away from the issue at the Cleveland Clinic)

Some issues are also related to genetics. People can be predisposed to obesity, high cholesterol, heart disease, infertility, all sorts of things. While I see cigarettes and nicotine as a complete choice and something that can (with great effort) be walked away from entirely, obesity is not always that manageable.

Food choices do (obviously) come into play, but genes play a HUGE role for many people. I grew up eating the same food as my friends (who are sisters), playing the same sports, doing the same activites - and I have been pudgy from the get-go - and they're sticks. AND my cholesterol is fantastic, while a very thin friend of mine has to take meds.

It's not all b/c people are fat and lazy.

His first step was to boot McDonalds out of the cafeteria, and then he started on the smoking thing.

It's funny that you mentioned this. DH just told me about him. He's now trying to boot McDonald's from ALL hospitals.

While I understand the whole slippery slope concept, I have to say that I'm glad Cleveland Clinic is banning smokers from employment.

[Deebs]

I previously worked at Mayo teaching healthcare professionals around the world how to treat nicotine addiction and helping employers create smoke-free policies. The biggest problem with testing for nicotine (I'm assuming they're testing cotinine, which is actually a metabolite of nicotine), is that if someone is being treated for tobacco dependence, the gold standard is to use nicotine replacement. There's no difference testing-wise between someone who smokes and uses replacement. Theoretically, a patient could be on nicotine replacement for a lifetime.

We did work with quite a few attorneys as employers were trying to determine where to go with employees (we actually didn't encourage employers not to hire based on tobacco use status because it's basically impossible to "police" and makes treatment incredibly shameful), including those from the ACLU, and it was determined legal, and not in violation of civil liberties. That being said, I do have a problem with them adding it in to drug testing, for the reasons above.

In Ohio specifically, there are tons of treatment options available through the state, so I'm not sure the Clinic has to offer its own, although I think all healthcare organizations should include it as part of primary care, if no specialty center is available (there isn't a specialty center at Cleveland Clinic, and I think the closest is in Columbus). At Mayo we found that employees were the last to seek treatment because of the stigma associated with it, even though treatment there was free to employees.

[Sheherezade]

Sorry for the cut and paste.....but you all do seem interested in the details.

Clinic will not hire any smokers
Testing begins July 1, no-hire policy Sept. 1
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Mary Vanac
Plain Dealer Reporter

Smokers and chewers need not apply for work at the Cleveland Clinic.

Beginning Sept. 1, Ohio's second-biggest employer will no longer hire anyone who uses tobacco.

The move ensures the Clinic will "walk the walk" of a health-care institution that stands for wellness, Chief Executive Dr. Toby Cosgrove said Wednesday.

The policy, to be announced today, puts the Clinic among a handful of companies willing to tell even skilled applicants to look elsewhere if they use tobacco.

Cleveland health insurer Medical Mutual doesn't hire smokers. Scotts Miracle Grow Co. stopped hiring smokers about a year ago.

The Marysville maker of consumer lawn and garden products also reserves the right to test current workers and to fire them if they test positive, said Jim King, vice president of corporate communications.

Salem Community Hospital in Columbiana County began screening potential employees for nicotine in 1996.

"The policy is very simple," Michele Hoffmeister, the hospital's public relations director, said by e-mail. "If you smoke, you are not considered for employment at Salem Community Hospital."

But critics consider smoke-free hiring policies to be discrimination.

"While the public health goals of such policies are clear and commendable, promoting the healthy lifestyles and reducing risky behaviors ought not come at the price of basic freedoms," argued Summer Johnson of the Center for American Progress, a progressive think tank in Washington.

"It is unjust to threaten smokers' livelihoods in order to induce them to quit," Johnson wrote in April 2006 in a policy paper posted on the organization's Web site. "Discrimination against smokers in the service of economic gains or public health goals ought not be tolerated."

In Ohio, no law prevents employers from prohibiting employees to use tobacco, said Richard Selby, an attorney for Lake County law firm Dworken & Bernstein Co., who has a substantial employee rights practice.

Nineteen other states are in the same position, according to the Tobacco Public Policy Center in Columbus.

While people who are obese or disabled are protected under federal employment law, smokers are not, Cosgrove said.

In Okemos, Mich., none of the 175-plus employees at Weyco Inc. smoke, the tobacco policy center says. Ninety percent of employees' spouses are tobacco-free as well.

The company, which manages employee benefit plans, stopped hiring smokers in 2003. It also made its campus entirely tobacco-free and prohibited employees from taking off-campus breaks.

Next, Weyco began voluntary tobacco testing in January 2004. Employees were fined $50 a month if they tested positive. A year later, the company told employees they would lose their jobs if they tested positive.

The Clinic, with 36,300 employees, will have a bigger job making its work force in Ohio and Florida smoke-free. The Clinic will phase in the hiring policy, which will not affect current employees. It will extend to all vendors employed on Clinic campuses, however.

Beginning Sunday, all applicants will take urine tests screening for nicotine use. Job seekers won't be flagged unless their nicotine exposure passes a threshold that rules out people exposed only to secondhand smoke.

No applicant will be turned away at that point, although tobacco users will be offered free help to quit. Beginning Sept. 1, no tobacco user will be hired, and free help will remain available. A job seeker who gives up tobacco can reapply in 90 days.

The policy is only the latest of the Clinic's efforts to expand its wellness program. The Clinic earlier removed trans fats from its cafeteria menus and sugar-sweetened beverages from its vending machines. It also pushed smokers off its campuses and began a communitywide push for smoking cessation.

"We are trying to make a healthier environment, and we are trying to be a model," Cosgrove said. "We want society to understand that we're modeling what we think is appropriate healthy behavior."

For the Clinic to continue to grow, it must focus on wellness, Cosgrove explained.

Cardiac and respiratory failure, cancer and stroke now are the top causes of death in the United States. "Most of those are not going to be cured by new therapies. They're going to be cured by prevention," Cosgrove said.

"So one would expect that the major jumps in survival are now going to be made by wellness care, as opposed to sickness care."

Anesthesiologist Dr. Michael Roizen has been appointed the Clinic's first chief wellness officer to lead the wellness push.

"Part of my job will be to make sure that we are the healthiest and most enjoyable place for employees to work," Roizen said.

Some Greater Cleveland leaders who have been briefed about the Clinic's changes have been surprised.

"The first word out of people's mouths that I talk to is 'Wow,' " said Oliver "Pudge" Henkel, the Clinic's executive director of government, community and education relations.

"It's phenomenal the reaction that I've gotten from people who, when you explain it fully, realize that it's not punitive, that we're trying to help the community."

Interesting -- thanks, Angie.

I love the Oliver "Pudge" Henkel. He needs a better nickname.