LIFESTYLE DISCRIMINATION
IN about 12 months, the Government’s ban on smoking in offices and pubs should come into force. But such lifestyle diktats could spread to cover smoking everywhere, at all times, and include drinking and recreational drugs too, thanks to employers who want to control your health behaviour wherever you go.
Weyco, an insurance consultancy in Michigan, was among the first to start the trend. Two years ago it gave employees 15 months to stop smoking or face the sack. When the deadline arrived, four workers who failed breath tests were dismissed.
Think it couldn’t happen here? It’s true that Michigan’s employment laws favour the bosses and companies often contribute to their employees’ health insurance. But Britain is hardly known for workers’ rights and not that long ago Tony Blair declared that we should all be healthier lest we overburden the NHS.
America’s National Workrights Institute calls this issue lifestyle discrimination. And it’s not only smoking. Chains such as Blockbuster have reserved the right to drug-test employees. Bartenders and waitresses at casinos in the US have been told they face the sack if they put on more than 7 per cent of their bodyweight. Quaker Oats and Johnson & Johnson have instituted “wellness programmes”, to which employees sign up to be facilitated to slim down and shape up in exchange for cheaper health insurance. The companies say this has saved them millions of dollars in illness claims.
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But there is another crucial motive at work — control. Employers crave it. If they can control your mind and body outside the workplace, then perhaps they can squeeze more productivity from you. It’s not a new idea. Hitler had it in his quest for world domination, declaring: “Your body belongs to the nation! Your body belongs to the Führer! You have the duty to be healthy!”