A city in Ohio will no longer hire smokers or 'vapers.' Studies they have seen indicate each smoker costs an additional $6,000 in lost productivity and medical costs.
Is this legal? Cara Woolet with Jill Hickman Companies says ‘yes.’ “Smokers are not among any federally protected group.”However, Woolet does say smoking may have caused pre-existing health conditions in smokers that could be labeled a disability. “It could very easily happen that these smokers claim they weren’t hired because they were disabled. Lots of companies could be in hot water over it.” Woolet also points out what companies could be losing, “They are putting their image and their bottom line as their top priorities instead of hiring the smartest and best people to make their business sky-rocket.”
The city's police union is none too happy about this saying that hiring will be made on off-the-job behavior instead of past job performance and ability.
Stay tuned. We’ll keep you posted!