U-Haul's Nicotine-Free Hiring Rule Reflects A Trend That Troubles Workers' Advocates
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In a recent poll, more than half of American smokers say they feel discriminated against. Most workplaces are smoke-free zones, and some companies are refusing to even hire smokers or vapers. Next month, U-Haul joins their ranks, at least in states where it's allowed. Nashville Public Radio's Blake Farmer explains.
BLAKE FARMER, BYLINE: Like most smokers, Carl Carter has had jobs where he felt the cold shoulder from his colleagues, either because they disliked the smell or resented his time spent hiking back and forth to the smoking area.
CARL CARTER: You know, even when I was doing temporary work, people would be like, oh, you're going on break? Are you going to smoke?
FARMER: Carter is waiting at a bus stop in a bustling Nashville office park. The grassy medians in the middle of the road are littered with cigarette butts. Workers go there to smoke even in the rain because they're banned from smoking on company property. With a pack in his hand and a cigarette in his mouth, Carter says he wants to quit. He's tried eight times.
CARTER: This is my last habit, and I don't plan on giving it up as quick as I thought.
FARMER: Carter isn't working currently and says he knows cigarettes hurt his chances, but he's accepted it. Phoenix-based U-Haul is just the latest firm to announce an explicit policy to screen for nicotine before hiring. Hiring bans are more common at high-profile hospitals that are especially protective of their healthy image. But even the city of Dayton, Ohio, launched a nicotine-free hiring policy in August.
Karen Buesing of the law firm Akerman represents employers and says they do have some concerns about productivity and absenteeism. But it's more about the risk of cancer, heart and lung disease.
KAREN BUESING: You know, obviously, there are higher health care costs associated with smokers. And so many companies would much prefer to have a nonsmoking workforce.
FARMER: The corporate cost per smoker is estimated to be thousands of dollars a year. Buesing says discrimination of any kind is so taboo that employers in many states don't realize they can reject applicants for being smokers - but not everywhere. U-Haul's policy only affects 21 states because the rest have various laws that safeguard off-duty activity. Buesing says many of the laws were passed in recent decades specifically to shield smokers.
BUESING: You now have protections for smokers, where previously - certainly under federal law - smokers are not a protected class.
FARMER: Still, Buesing doesn't expect the U-Haul announcement to unleash a flood of similar policies. She says rewarding healthy behavior is still seen as the most palatable approach. U-Haul says it reserves the right to even drug-test new hires for nicotine, though it's unclear how that would affect workers who use nicotine gum or patches. The moving company with 30,000 employees declined NPR's interview request. But Harald Schmidt, a medical ethicist at the University of Pennsylvania, says targeting smokers disproportionately harms poor people.
HARALD SCHMIDT: To me, this is more about fair equality of opportunity.
FARMER: Smoking is a behavior, so Schmidt doesn't equate it with discriminating on the basis of race, gender or sexual orientation. But he notes that roughly half of unemployed people smoke. And quitting is hard.
SCHMIDT: It's very hard for them to get work, and it's even harder for people who already in a vulnerable situation.
FARMER: And what's next? Will nicotine-free hiring lead to more policing of worker health? Scott Bales thinks so. He's an IT administrator on a vaping break outside his office in Nashville.
SCOTT BALES: I think that it's interesting in that they are demonizing one over the other, and I'll specifically use alcohol. How can you ban one substance without banning the other one?
FARMER: But companies rejecting smokers point out tobacco is the most preventable cause of cancer and lung disease. And they're going to have to pay the bills.
For NPR News, I'm Blake Farmer in Nashville.
CORNISH: And this story comes from a partnership between NPR, Kaiser Health News and WPLN.
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