If we could save only one job!

Last night M. Simon said he was “taking the test,” and he was talking about a political test. This morning I read about another test which is being used more and more by employers.

A urine test. Not for the usual substances they test for, but urine testing for nicotine. The emerging trend is that not only will smoking on the job be prohibited, but all consumption of all nicotine, wherever, and whenever.

As bans on smoking sweep the USA, an increasing number of employers — primarily hospitals — are also imposing bans on smokers. They won’t hire applicants whose urine tests positive for nicotine use, whether cigarettes, smokeless tobacco or even patches.

Such tobacco-free hiring policies, designed to promote health and reduce insurance premiums, took effect this month at the Baylor Health Care System in Texas and will apply at the Hollywood Casino in Toledo, Ohio, when it opens this year.

“We have to walk the walk if we talk the talk,” says Dave Fotsch of Idaho’s Central District Health Department, which voted last month to stop hiring smokers.

This represents a shift from the war on smoking in public to a war against nicotine use itself. Not only will all smoking be banned, but so will chewing tobacco use, nicotine patches, and of course electronic cigarettes.

It is being called workplace discrimination, which of course it is. But the question naturally arises whether an employer should have the right to discriminate in any way he sees fit. I’m not quite sure whether the basis here involves concern over the health of the employee, or whether it involves somehow instilling in them an “image” of being unhealthy-substance-free. Zero tolerance and all that.

If the idea is to radically depart from the concerns over a smoke free workplace and to create an unhealthy-substance-free work force, then zero tolerance for alcohol is only a short step away. There are already urine tests that go beyond measuring alcohol in the body, but which detect the presence of a metabolite indicating whether a person has consumed alcohol in the past four days.

And if the concern is health, why stop there? I am sure there are (or soon will be) tests which detect the metabolites of unhealthy foods and frowned-upon food additives.  Hey, we have to walk the walk if we talk the talk, and aren’t we already in a war against obesity?

The problem is that it’s easy for libertarians like me to talk about the rights of employers, and sure, no one has to apply for a job in a place with zero tolerance for bad health risks. But these new trends and new ideas have sneaky ways of becoming mandatory and even official policy, and when that happens, it’s a bit silly to talk in terms of employers’ rights. I know an employer who told me that he is forced by state law to test his employees for drugs even though he is against drug testing and does not want to do it.

I’m wondering about something in the employers’ rights department, though. Would it be legal for an employer who thought it was good for workplace morale to hire only smokers? Studies have shown that smoking improves memory and concentration, and thus productivity. So do regular breaks.

Perhaps a comparative workplace study should be done.