The Hightower Report

Where There's Smoke, There's Firing

Okay, here I go. With all of the giant problems on our small globe, I shouldn't ricochet off on the issue of smoking bans, but my Libertarian leprechaun is tugging at me.

First, a personal digression: I smoked from about the age of 16 to 22 – a nasty but youthful vice. I was one of the lucky ones who didn't get addicted, so I was able to quit cold turkey. (By the way, what does that mean? Presumably a cold turkey is a dead bird somewhere between chilled and frozen, but what does that have to do with quitting something?)

I support nearly all smoking bans – in offices, airplanes, theatres, restaurants, bars, etc. But here comes a step beyond. More and more corporations and public entities have gone from banning smoking ... to banning smokers. Yes, this means that if you smoke on your own private time and in your own private place, you are persona nonhireable.

Now tighten your skis, for here we go down a very slippery slope. Not only are some employers decreeing that you can't be hired if you puff (even a little bit), but they're saying that if you're already an employee and you get caught puffing – poof! – you're gone.

And how would the bosses know that you had a Marlboro moment last night as you walked home? Urine tests. Excuse me, but tobacco is legal. Yet employers are compelling workers to pee in a cup to see if they've been partaking in this legal substance, and if they have – they're fired!

Are we really helping cigarette addicts to quit by denying them jobs? As one doctor notes, "Unemployment is also bad for health." I'm guessing that getting fired for smoking would make you want another cigarette.

What about us beer drinkers – are we next on the list of unhireables? And should there be a grease test on applicants who might be frequent Whopper eaters? Also, motorcycle riding is unhealthy. How many things can bosses ban before they have no one to boss?

Plenty of American Jobs

By golly, America is still an exporting powerhouse. In fact, our corporate chieftains have made us No. 1 in exporting America's most precious goods – our jobs, factories, technologies, and middle-class opportunities.

With unemployment and underemployment devastating millions of families in our country, perhaps you've assumed that U.S. corporations aren't hiring these days. Nonsense, they added 1.4 million jobs last year alone – overseas. For example, more than half of Caterpillar Inc.'s new hires in 2010 were in foreign countries. Many more of this giant's jobs are headed offshore in the near future, because Caterpillar, which was once an iconic American brand, has recently invested in three new plants in China. It will not only manufacture tractors and bulldozers there, but it'll also begin to ship its design work and technology development jobs to China.

Likewise, DuPont, once proud of its U.S. work force, has slashed its number of American employees in recent years while increasing its Asia-Pacific work force by more than half. Indeed, DuPont no longer considers itself American – "We are a global player," sniffs its chief innovation officer.

Such homemade brands as Coca-Cola, Dell, and IBM are also among the multitude of corporations abandoning our shores and our middle class. Of course, they still keep their well-appointed headquarters here so the corporation and top executives can continue enjoying all that America has to offer. Calvin Coolidge once asserted that "what's good for business is good for America." That was myopic enough, but today's narcissistic CEOs are even more self-serving, declaring that "what's good for business is good for business, America be damned."

If we are to have a united society, America cannot tolerate such raw selfishness by the privileged few. We can have a plutocracy or a democracy – but not both.