Employment: MI Worker Privacy Legislation

Universities asked not to hire smokers
In budget talks, senators say move could save state cash
February 20, 2008
Robin Erb, Special to the State Journal
EAST LANSING – Leaders of Michigan’s three largest research universities appeared before the state Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday hoping to hold onto a proposed budget increase by Gov. Jennifer Granholm.
But at least two senators had a favor of their own to ask: Help us get the state’s health care costs under control.
Sen. Thomas George, R-Kalamazoo, challenged the presidents of the University of Michigan, Wayne State University and Michigan State University to find ways to make Michigan’s population healthier, going so far as to ask the presidents to refuse to hire smokers.
“Where can universities help us make the population healthier? I’m not talking building new buildings. I’m talking about changing the behavior of the state’s population,” George said.
The request came in the first of a series of meetings between the committee and the presidents of the state’s public universities as the budget is set for the next year. While leaders of five universities spoke at Tuesday’s meeting on the campus of Michigan State University, the focus was on the state’s Big 3 of higher education.
Granholm has proposed a 3 percent increase in the pool of money for higher education, but increases among the universities would vary based on numbers of financially needy students, the rate at which students complete degrees in science, technology, engineering and math, and the amount of research they complete.
For the state’s largest institutions, research is a hefty variable. The remaining 12 state universities’ funding is closely linked to needy students.
The smallest increase, by percentage, would be 2.3 percent bumps for Central Michigan, Eastern Michigan, Northern Michigan and Western Michigan universities.
Lake Superior State University would see the largest increase, 6.2 percent.
Presidents of Michigan State, Wayne State and U-M gave their presentations together, seeking to be seen as a single entity for budgeting and offering comparisons to the successful Research Triangle in North Carolina. Last year, lawmakers separated the schools in the budget from the other 12 universities, but gave them the same increase as the other universities.
During questioning about the research corridor, George directed the discussion to health care. U-M’s President Mary Sue Coleman pushed back – first saying she’d refuse a hiring policy that banned smoking employees and asking how much such a policy would really impact the state’s budget long-term. Presidents of WSU and MSU followed her comments, saying they already offer research and programs to help boost health care initiatives.
But Sen. Bill Hardiman, R-Kentwood, echoed George’s challenge. “It’s a huge asset for the state of Michigan,” he said of the University Research Corridor universities, “and you could have a major impact” in controlling health care costs.
Lake Superior State University, whose President Rodney Lowman said he was a “fan” of the formula funding, also made its case for more money – offering a bar chart in which other universities’ state appropriations dwarfed LSSU’s.
Eastern Michigan was the last up, and interim President Donald Loppnow – referencing the earlier presentation by the URC presidents – said EMU fills state needs, too, in part, by educating nursing instructors to fill Michigan’s shortage of nurses, providing research that could save lives of U.S. soldiers and providing business incubators.

Michigan Legislators Ask State Universities Not to Hire Smokers
By Michael Siegel, MD, MPH

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No-Smokers Policy Spurs Worker Privacy Legislation in Michigan

02/15/2005

Michigan state Sen. Virg Bernero believes the eyes of the world are on his state, and he says that’s why he’s drafting legislation that would make it illegal for employers to make hiring and firing decisions based on a worker’s smoking preference.

Inspired by the plight of four smokers Bernero says were fired by Okemos, Mich.-based Weyco Inc. — a benefit services company that recently grabbed international headlines with its aggressive no-smoking policy — Bernero, a Lansing Democrat, said he made a pledge to the former employees that he would do everything in his power to protect theirs and other Michigan workers’ privacy.

“I think what happened is wrong. I think it’s un-American,” Bernero said. “I think part of the idea of freedom in America is having your home as your castle, your home as a sanctuary. When you punch out from work, you’re off the clock from company control.”

Not just a ‘smokers’ rights’ bill

A 2-year phasing out of smokers at Weyco came to a head this past Jan. 1, which was the company’s deadline for smokers to kick the habit or seek employment elsewhere. The proposed bill, though, isn’t just about protecting smokers’ rights, according to Bernero — who says he’s a non-smoker and a “big health advocate.”

“[The bill] says you cannot fire a worker for engaging in legal activities outside their workplace unless they directly infringe on your ability to perform your job or there’s a conflict of interest with the organization,” Bernero said in an interview with Occupational Hazards.com. “I want to take a broader approach than just adding smokers as a protected class.”

Bernero says 29 states have similar bills in place that, “to varying degrees, protect privacy.”

Weyco founder: Smokers drive up health care costs

Weyco founder and President Howard Weyers contends that workers who smoke are less productive than non-smokers. He also says smokers drive up already ballooning health care costs with their excess medical bills.

“Businesses have the right to protect themselves from the horrendous damages smokers inflict upon themselves and others — except in states with ‘smokers’ rights laws,’ mostly passed in the early 1990s with tobacco industry backing,” Weyers says in a statement posted Feb. 7 on his Web site. He adds that “standard company incentives to quit tobacco haven’t worked.”

Weyers, on his Web site and in a previous interview with Occupational Hazards.com, said his company always has had stop-smoking programs available to employees, in addition to voluntary wellness counseling and subsidies for health club memberships. But when he found out in 2003 that no Michigan law prohibits employers from making hiring and firing decisions on the basis of employees’ smoking preferences, he told his approximately 200 workers that beginning Jan. 1, 2005, Weyco no longer would employ smokers. The media quickly picked up on the story, and both Weyers and Bernero say the BBC has contacted them for interviews.

Former Weyco workers put a ‘human face’ on story

While Weyers estimates 15 or 20 former smokers at Weyco have kicked the habit since the company announced that smokers aren’t welcome there, four did not. Weyers asserts the four workers — all women — left the company voluntarily rather than submit to mandatory tobacco testing in early January; Bernero says they were fired. Weyers argues that Weyco made it clear to employees that the company would pay for any stop-smoking programs they chose to participate in.

Regardless, Bernero — who admits he hadn’t been following the story in the newspapers until being contacted by the former Weyco workers — says a two-hour conversation over coffee with the four women inspired him to take up the cause of worker privacy.

“They certainly put a human face on the story,” Bernero said. “These women are average people — they could be your sister, your aunt, your wife. … They all had good productivity, good job evaluations, and because they couldn’t or wouldn’t stop smoking, they were fired.”

Bernero: Eyes of the world are on his district

Bernero says he’s reluctant to use the term “slippery slope,” but he still worries that Weyers’ no-smoking policy will set a precedent that might embolden companies to make hiring decisions based on factors such as obesity and alcohol consumption — both of which, like smoking, Bernero considers addictive behaviors.

Bernero speculates that’s why this story has caught the attention of the international media, and also why he’s been deluged with e-mails and phone calls from people of every political and social stripe — including “smokers and non-smokers.”

“In some respect, the eyes of the country and the world are on my district and Okemos, Mich.,” Bernero said. “I don’t mean to sound melodramatic, but we do have to be concerned about liberty and freedom. And I think we need a clear demarcation of work time and home time, and establish that home time belongs to the worker and not the company.”

– Josh Cable
http://www.occupationalhazards.com/articles/12996