apparently he didnt look at the dictionary source...
anyway if there not smoking around other people and they dont have a real heavy smoking scent all the time, the company has no right to fire them.

But how do you come up with such loose guidelines? There needs to be clear guidelines that are easy to understand so that reporcusions are justified.

I don't think the real issue is smoking on the job, it'* wether you have the right to smoke, PERIOD, and at your home. No place of employment should have the right to tell ANYONE what they do in the privacy of their own home.

A policy change like that must be driven by economics, you can drink coffee at your desk etc, you cant smoke at your desk.

Corporations care more about bottom line, I believe that is the issue when considering firing staff if they smoke, or considering it.

And that is not the case here. Employees have every right to smoke in their homes, or wherever... but they risk getting fired, since that activity is prohibited by their employment contract. I'm sure they could place the same condition on any of the other "habits" you mentioned earlier... they have just chosen not to.

Of course this practice would get out of hand if *everything* was prohibited all the time; but we're only talking about smoking, which has no healthy or pleasant side effects AFAIK (other than a temporary nicotine high, which could be argued is pleasant for the user).

My coworkers/subordinates would say smoking has a pleasant aspect. I'm much less likely to kill them if I get to take a break and grab a smoke...

And, Jim, since you mentioned paying smokers for taking thier breaks, the company also pays the people that use thier breaks to grab coffee/tea/pop/water/whatever, or just to get away from thier desk/work area.

My two, legally required, 15 minue paid breaks per day include my travel time to and from the smoking area (way back by the back door, which only makes sense), just the same as people who only travel to the break room for a drink/snack or the ones that go to the lounge to watch TV. I don't see how me grabbing a smoke costs the comapny any more than a non smoker.

BUT, the basic issue is still - How can a company get away with telling me what LEGAL activities I can or cannot do on my own time and at my own home?

Heck, I worked at a company that said "No smoking on the grounds." So, we all walked across the street. Problem solved. Was still on time getting back from break, just had to smoke that much faster...

By specifying it in an employment contract, to which you would have agreed by accepting employment at said company. They could put *anything* in there.

Okay, I finally got around to reading the article. The initial post on this is kind of misleading. They aren't firing smokers, they are just not hiring them...

That makes it entirely different. If part of your job interview says "We don't hire smokers" and you lie about it, then if you lose your job it'* because yer a dumass. Not because the company is discriminating (or whatever you wanna call it)

This will only fly in this economy.

In an employer driven economy, such as we're in now, employers have the liberty to set these ridiculous guidelines. If this were in the 90s when employees were harder to come by and turnover was much higher, KVCC could never get away this and expect to remain competative. Employees wouldn't even bother applying or just quit and go somewhere else. Even those who don't smoke and feel strongly against the policy would be hard to attract.

For once I'd like to see the ACLU involved.