No-nicotine hiring policies’ fairness questioned

Roughly half of jobless people smoke, so critics call such policies biased.

When U-Haul recently announced it will no longer hire people who use nicotine in any form in the 21 states where such hiring policies are legal, the Phoenix-based moving company joined a cadre of companies with nicotine-free hiring policies.

U-Haul’s announcement is receiving outsize attention because nicotine-free hiring policies are more common at high-profile hospitals such as Cleveland Clinic that are especially protective of their healthy image.

Alaska Airlines has one of the oldest nicotine-free hiring policies, going back to 1985. But at the time, a big part of the stated reasoning was that the industry isn’t conducive to taking smoke breaks.

Now, some employers are making the policy change simply citing health concerns or health care costs — even the city of Dayton,

Ohio, has joined the movement.

But the policies are raising concern around labor and medical ethics. Harald Schmidt, a medical ethicist at the University of Pennsylvania, said targeting smokers disproportionately harms poor people.

“To me, this is more about fair equality of opportunity,” he said.

Smoking is a behavior, so Schmidt doesn’t equate it with discriminating on the basis of race, gender or sexual orientation. But he notes that roughly half of unemployed people smoke. And quitting is hard, because nicotine is highly addictive.

“You’re basically posing a double whammy on them,” Schmidt said. “It’s very hard for them to

AP FILE PHOTO 2006 U-Haul said it won’t hire nicotine users in 21 states where it is legal to do so, saying it wants a “healthier workforce.” The new policy starts Feb. 1 but won’t apply to those hired earlier.