Employment At Will

There was a very interesting article in the News Journal this week entitled “Bad habits can cost you your job”. This article described the situation in which some employers are firing employees for their behavior outside of work. This included such offenses as smoking, drinking, and being over weight. The rational these companies are using is that their employee’s behavior is increasing health care costs. I was surprised to learn from this article that 29 states have created laws to protect smokers from being fired because of their smoking habitat.

This issue raises the main concept of “employment at will” which we began discussing last night. Currently the law of “employment at will” states that anyone can be fired for any reason, legally. Therefore this situation creates the question that although this is legal, is it ethical? From a utilitarian point of view, this would be viewed as acceptable because firing the employees that increase health care costs ultimately benefits the company, other employees, and society. Friedman’s point of view would also corroborate this action because the decrease in health care cost results in greater profits for the stockholders.

My personal opinion is that this action is not ethical. Yes, it is true that statistically these people have greater health care costs but at the same time there are segments that are not included in this conversation. For example, a woman who has a premature baby can cost an insurance plan a huge amount of money; maybe even more than the average smoker. So then, should all women of child bearing age be fired?

Reference: http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080310/BUSINESS/803100311