There are a lot of issues here but I thought I would throw in my 2 cents.
Theoretically, employees and employers are on equal terms and either one can terminate their engagement at anytime for any reason. But the reality is that there is a tremendous differential in power, which is why the employer gets to hand the employee a 200 page book of rules instead of the other way around, and why government intervened to impose laws preventing discrimination on the basis of things like race or to impose a 40 hour work week. The simple fact is that if the parties were equally powerful, no such government intervention would be required to prevent injustices. But since such intervention is required, it should be understood that the employer is generally the more powerful of the two parties.
Yes, an employer can impose any rule it desires so long as that rule doesn't violate any laws. As an employer I can also mandate urine tests for caffeine metabolites and fire anyone who drinks coffee if that floats my boat. Whether I SHOULD -- that is, whether such a thing is in my self-interest -- is another matter.
The basis for banning e-cig use by employees is straightforward. Smoking is a hazard and increases the cost of providing healthcare coverage. Banning smoking by employees reduces costs. The current method of monitoring compliance is checking for cotinine, a nicotine metabolite. This test does not distinguish the means of nicotine consumption -- merely that nicotine has been consumed. The use of e-cigs would be banned because were it not banned it would be impossible (without switching to a different test) to distinguish between smokers and non-smokers and would thus negate the smoking ban.
Furthermore, even in places that do not ban all smoking (even at home) by employees (Wow! Talk about Power! The power to control what you do on your own time and dime!) or monitor compliance through urinalysis; there is the issue of avoiding misunderstandings. The simple fact is that exhaling vapor looks like smoking and allowing it in areas that are non-smoking will lead to complaints by ignorant persons. As an employer, it might not be my job to educate employees about the e-cig industry and it is frankly just easier to ban it and that way I don't have to deal with misunderstandings.
Should they ban e-cigs? No. But CAN they? Absolutely. They can because there is an enormous power differential between employers and employees -- a power differential so great that the only way to prevent racial discrimination was to pass legislation with serious teeth. If, sans legal restrictions, employers could essentially ban people of certain races, they are quite certainly powerful enough to ban e-cigs unless legislation prevents it.
This is a fight that must be dealt with legislatively. Only at that level is there sufficient power to trump employers.
Next is a related issue. For quite some time there has been a deliberate psychopathologization of smoking and smokers. This is a tried and true technique that ultimately makes people who smoke see themselves as bad people, inferior, deserving of bad treatment, etc. for that behavior. People who smoke (or used to smoke) need to shake off this deliberately induced self-loathing mindset because it has no basis in reality.
People all over this country are addicted to a variety of legally prescribed psychoactive medications. Antidepressants, benzos, amphetamines and more. Yet, this is not psychopathologized. Drinking, a behavior tied in some persons to violence and quite often to the harm of innocent third parties, is not psychopathologized. It is time to understand that nicotine has been singled out unfairly, and its users singled out unfairly. There is nothing wrong with people for using nicotine.
Before we can be successful in advocating on behalf of our ability to do something that harms no third parties and quite likely doesn't even harm ourselves, we first have to shake the unfairly and deliberately induced mindset that use of nicotine in and of itself is wrong, shameful, evil, nasty, and something to be swept under the rug as though it were incest.
The solution is legislative. The precondition is self-knowledge that advocating for such legislation is morally RIGHT.
Theoretically, employees and employers are on equal terms and either one can terminate their engagement at anytime for any reason. But the reality is that there is a tremendous differential in power, which is why the employer gets to hand the employee a 200 page book of rules instead of the other way around, and why government intervened to impose laws preventing discrimination on the basis of things like race or to impose a 40 hour work week. The simple fact is that if the parties were equally powerful, no such government intervention would be required to prevent injustices. But since such intervention is required, it should be understood that the employer is generally the more powerful of the two parties.
Yes, an employer can impose any rule it desires so long as that rule doesn't violate any laws. As an employer I can also mandate urine tests for caffeine metabolites and fire anyone who drinks coffee if that floats my boat. Whether I SHOULD -- that is, whether such a thing is in my self-interest -- is another matter.
The basis for banning e-cig use by employees is straightforward. Smoking is a hazard and increases the cost of providing healthcare coverage. Banning smoking by employees reduces costs. The current method of monitoring compliance is checking for cotinine, a nicotine metabolite. This test does not distinguish the means of nicotine consumption -- merely that nicotine has been consumed. The use of e-cigs would be banned because were it not banned it would be impossible (without switching to a different test) to distinguish between smokers and non-smokers and would thus negate the smoking ban.
Furthermore, even in places that do not ban all smoking (even at home) by employees (Wow! Talk about Power! The power to control what you do on your own time and dime!) or monitor compliance through urinalysis; there is the issue of avoiding misunderstandings. The simple fact is that exhaling vapor looks like smoking and allowing it in areas that are non-smoking will lead to complaints by ignorant persons. As an employer, it might not be my job to educate employees about the e-cig industry and it is frankly just easier to ban it and that way I don't have to deal with misunderstandings.
Should they ban e-cigs? No. But CAN they? Absolutely. They can because there is an enormous power differential between employers and employees -- a power differential so great that the only way to prevent racial discrimination was to pass legislation with serious teeth. If, sans legal restrictions, employers could essentially ban people of certain races, they are quite certainly powerful enough to ban e-cigs unless legislation prevents it.
This is a fight that must be dealt with legislatively. Only at that level is there sufficient power to trump employers.
Next is a related issue. For quite some time there has been a deliberate psychopathologization of smoking and smokers. This is a tried and true technique that ultimately makes people who smoke see themselves as bad people, inferior, deserving of bad treatment, etc. for that behavior. People who smoke (or used to smoke) need to shake off this deliberately induced self-loathing mindset because it has no basis in reality.
People all over this country are addicted to a variety of legally prescribed psychoactive medications. Antidepressants, benzos, amphetamines and more. Yet, this is not psychopathologized. Drinking, a behavior tied in some persons to violence and quite often to the harm of innocent third parties, is not psychopathologized. It is time to understand that nicotine has been singled out unfairly, and its users singled out unfairly. There is nothing wrong with people for using nicotine.
Before we can be successful in advocating on behalf of our ability to do something that harms no third parties and quite likely doesn't even harm ourselves, we first have to shake the unfairly and deliberately induced mindset that use of nicotine in and of itself is wrong, shameful, evil, nasty, and something to be swept under the rug as though it were incest.
The solution is legislative. The precondition is self-knowledge that advocating for such legislation is morally RIGHT.
