The company that brought us the anti-smoking high-jinks now brings us the hilarity of threatening its overweight employees, after saying it wouldn't threaten its overweight employees just a week ago.
http://money.cnn.com/2005/01/31/news....reut/?cnn=yes
Quote:
Lose weight or lose your job
Business owner who forced workers to quit smoking now wants them to get skinny, too.
January 31, 2005: 12:50 PM EST
CHICAGO (Reuters) - The owner of a Michigan company who forced his employees to either quit smoking or quit their jobs also wants to tell fat workers to lose weight.
A ban on tobacco use -- whether at home or at the workplace -- led four employees to quit their jobs last week at Okemos, Michigan-based Weyco Inc., which handles insurance claims.
The workers refused to take a mandatory urine test demanded of Weyco's 200 employees by founder and sole owner Howard Weyers, a demand that he said was perfectly legal.
"If you don't want to take the test, you can leave," Weyers told Reuters. "I'm not controlling their lives; they have a choice whether they want to work here."
Also a health concern: overweight workers.
"We have to work on eating habits and getting people to exercise. But if you're obese, you're (legally) protected," Weyers said.
He has brought in an eating disorder therapist to speak to workers, provided eating coaches, created a point system for employees to earn health-related $100 bonuses and plans to offer $45 vouchers for health club memberships.
The 71-year-old Weyers, who said he has never smoked and pronounced himself in good shape thanks to daily runs, said employees' health as well as saving money on the company's own insurance claims led him to first bar smokers from being hired in 2003.
Last year, he banned smoking during office hours, then demanded smokers pay a monthly $50 "assessment," and finally instituted mandatory testing.
Twenty workers quit the habit.
Weyers tells clients to quit whining about health care costs and to "set some expectations; demand some things."
Job placement specialist John Challenger said Weyco's moves could set a precedent for larger companies -- if it survives potential legal challenges.
"Certainly it raises an interesting boundary issue: rising health care costs and society's aversion to smoking versus privacy and freedom rights of an individual," Challenger said.
So far no legal challenges have been made to Weyco's policies.
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The thread about smoking brought up this possibility, discussing just how far this company is willing to go. Within the week, his policies are extending to those who are overweight. He seems to lament the fact that overweight employees have legal protection against discrimination. Honestly, what's next?
I find it interesting that no one has challenged the legality of this yet. I understand that he has the right to run his company the way he wants, but does he have the right to dictate the private lives of his employees?
Yes, this was discussed under the smoking thread, but the new addition of overweight workers increases the scope of the topic.