Since there's little chance of my attaining in-house employment ever again, especially if a prospective boss sees this blog, I thought I'd address the issue of employees' rights in the area of personal behavior on personal time. That is, how much say does an employer have over an employee's legal behaviors on his or her own time? Can and employer reject or fire you because you are a smoker? Because you have an occasional beer? Because you have had more than a dozen sexual partners in your lifetime? Because you have a history of depression? Because you are a single parent? Because you are a member of the ACLU?
ABC News recently featured a disturbing story on just this issue.
I found it alarming the degree to which employers could use discretionary powers without being accused of discrimination. Yes, there are compelling economic forces that would suggest employers could save a bundle of cash if they were to hire only people with "healthy" lifestyles, but actuarial tables are not the measure of a fair or just society.
I'm really not sure what, if anything can be done to stem this ugly tide before we all become slaves to homogeneity. It is my hope that the goons and the ginks and the company finks will realize that they have the most to gain from a diverse workforce, rather than from one that has been cherry-picked for the most healthy overall profile. But I fear the future is fraught with legal battles over this issue, and that many will have to lose their livelihoods before the rights of the individual are given their due.
These are, I fear, yet further symptoms of a society in contraction, if not outright decline. The need to view the individual as an asset to be cultivated and compartmentalized, and the workplace as a garden to be weeded of its "undesirable" plants. I find it difficult at such times to be generous or optimistic about America's future. We persistently encourage and reward the solutions that are most cost-compliant and at the expense of variety, creativity, or even skill.
The one with the gold, makes the rule.
The American workplace is a vise grip only getting tighter. The purpose of these mandates seems to be to weed out those who cannot be bent to another's will. Every now and then I meet somebody who is retiring after 40 years with a company. These days, you couldn't achieve that even if you wanted to. Nobody's going to let you stay when your pay is maxed out and you cost more to insure. Your work record doesn't matter because the work doesn't matter. All that matters is the bottom line.
It's all a complete source of despair to me. I don't care so much for myself, but for my child. Right now I feel like unless she mortgages her soul to go to graduate school and into some kind of professional practice of her own...it looks bleak. It puts me in a tough spot to raise her with all kinds of platitudes about how if you work hard you'll be rewarded--when I don't even believe that.
Posted by: Celeste | February 15, 2010 at 11:40 PM
And the beknighted teabaggers are afraid of tyrrany from the government.
Posted by: Thomas | February 15, 2010 at 11:49 PM
It is my understanding that currently, each state sets its on rules in this regard. Michigan is an "at will" state. This means I could lose my job if my boss decided he wanted to hire his daughter, even if his daughter lacks the skills.
Michigan is also home of the insurance company that gave their employees who smoked the ultimatum "quite or be fired."
Unions lost sight of their purpose and have, in many ways, become another version of the very corruption they were designed to rid us of.
Posted by: leah | February 18, 2010 at 10:06 PM
AMEN Leah!!!
I grow up in Michigan and we were always told "if you wanted to know what a dying city looks, like look at Flint". Well, it can now be said that "if you want to know what a dying state looks like, look at Michigan".
Unions have not only out-lived their usefulness, they have become cancerous!!!!!
Posted by: Alice | February 19, 2010 at 12:09 PM