EMPR200 – Current Event 2

The company announced it would stop hiring smokers affected February 1 of this year. U-Haul had now applied a new policy for his/her employees and allow employees to have a drug test for nicotine. Why is an employer so judgmental with his/her employee’s personal habits?

In the article by Rosa Saba “U-Haul is refusing to hire smokers. Can Canadian companies do the same?” she explains the company is looking into adding a new policy, which is to not hire smokers and have a smoke free company for employees and if someone would have taken the company to court then there is a high chance this employee would win the case. Right now, this new policy is affected in United States only but in the future, they are looking into expanding this policy.

Why is U-Haul so judgmental? Why did the union of U-Haul accept this policy? Why would any employer implement this? This is a risk to take for any employer, it is the employees right to smoke if they want to, It is not legal to smoke. I would be embarrassed to be part of the recruitment team of U-Haul, asking an interviewee if she/he is a smoker and if the person being interviewed answers “YES” and we tell him/her that we cannot accept the application because of this. What if this person is the best and passes all the questions and is a good candidate for the job but cannot pass one question about smoking, the person did not get the job for that.

Robert Hudek commented on the article by Rosa Saba “If they smoke in a vehicle that is rented to a customer then that could be a problem for U-Haul. I would refuse to rent it. Otherwise, smoking on their own time in a designated place is not my concern. Addictions are often very difficult to end.” This comment is one of the best comments, I strongly agree with Robert about this, and it is true as long as there is a designated area to smoke and not smoke while in a client’s house should have been a way to go about this. Not refuse a smoker’s application.

So why is an employer so judgmental with his/her employee’s habits? I would this is a ridiculous and to have U-Haul re-negotiation this new policy, to having designated areas, to not smoke at a client’s property and avoid smoking inside the rental trucks. This would be better and fairer to smoking employees.