The latest employment controversy in Amarillo is Baptist St. Anthony hospital’s new policy of refusing to hire new employees whose pre-employment drug test shows the presence of nicotine. BSA is straightforward about its refusal to hire any new smokers for its non-smoking campus, in part because its sole mission is healthcare. Click here to read the original story from the Amarillo Globe-News. From the number of comments this story has generated on the Globe-News website, the KVII website and the letters to the editor it appears that many people have strong opinions on this subject, many believing that BSA’s policy is discriminatory.
The advantages of the policy for BSA are obvious: adherence to its mission of promoting health, improved morale of persons bothered by the smell of smoke, less absenteeism and eventually decreased health insurance premiums and claims. While the policy may also shrink the pool of qualified job applicants, I would bet that in the current economic crisis BSA is not too concerned about that problem.
But can BSA legally enforce this policy? In the Globe-News story, I was quoted as saying that there is no federal or state discrimination law that is violated by BSA’s new policy. I stand by that quote. Jeff Blackburn, another local attorney who tends to take the employee’s side of things, apparently disagrees with me and says that it is a violation of a person’s civil rights to deny a smoker employment. Click here for his comments on KVII TV’s website. I don’t know of any Texas or federal law that supports Jeff’s argument, so Jeff and I will just have to agree to disagree on this point. It might be different if smoking were like race or age, a protected characteristic that you can’t change and which should not put you at an employment disadvantage. However, smoking is a choice, and one of the consequences of that choice now will be that you cannot be hired at BSA.
Other states handle this issue differently.
According to the National Workrights Institute, 30 states and the District of Columbia currently have some form of smokers’ rights laws on the books. These so-called “lifestyle antidiscrimination” laws protect employees and applicants from discipline or other adverse employment actions either specifically because they smoke or generally because the persons use a lawful product, such as tobacco, outside of work.
Legal Trends: Smelling Smoke, HR Magazine (December 2006).
Since there is no lifestyle antidiscrimination law on the books in Texas and since Texas courts generally uphold the “at will” employment rights of businesses to fire someone for good reason, bad reason or no reason at all, I think Texas courts would support BSA on this one. Texas employers, in my opinion, are free to screen for nicotine just like any other drug at the pre-employment stage and free to refuse to hire anyone who fails that drug test.
I am interested in your opinion on this matter, so feel free to click the word “comment” below and tell me what you think.