begin quoting Alan as of Wed, Jan 02, 2008 at 12:21:01PM -0800: > On Wed, January 2, 2008 11:15 am, David Brown wrote: > > > > Demanding a non-smoker is probably on pretty shaky legal ground. > > Depends on the state, I'd think. > Some states have explicit legal protection for employees/applicants, in > that they cannot be penalized for engaging in legal activities outside of > work. > > I've no idea of CA has that sort of protection.
IANAL, but I believe it does. With exemptions. I'm amazed the Disney gets away with what it does... > Of course, you'd have to be careful how you did it all the same, since > Federal laws prohibit discrimination on "health grounds". > That is to say, "We didn't hire him because smokers drive up health > insurance costs" would be bad, whereas "We didn't hire her because smokers > take more breaks" might be ok. Maybe not even that. "Smokers generally have a negative impact on the productivity of the rest of the staff" might be better, and even so probably not enough. Of course, if you put in a policy that someone who reeks* needs to clock out and leave the workplace until they can rectify the situation, you've solved the problem, more or less. Assuming management has the backbone to enforce it. [*] Of smoke, perfume, a fear of bathing, or whatnot. > > The interviewing guidelines we have at work have an amazing list of > > questions we are not to ask, even if they just give a hint at possible > > discrimination: "What kind of name is ___", or "Was that a Catholic > > school?" > > A lot of large companies have training programs for people who are going > to be interviewing. Sticking to just the job when you are asking questions > is never a bad policy. Last time I was involved in the interviews, I asked some offball questions; there was no right or wrong answer, we just wanted to see how they'd fit in with the group. Some of the best people we got responded with "I don't know what you're talking about. Could you explain?" -- The ability to ask questions when confused or lost Is worth more than any reduction in training cost. Stewart Stremler -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
