More employers are testing potential hires to see if they smoke.
Here's what Homac Co. has to say to hard-core smokers who want a job: Don't bother.
For two years, the maker of electrical connectors has been testing prospective employees for nicotine, just as it does for drugs and alcohol.
The company has been weeding out smokers and promoting a wellness program for other workers to control double-digit increases in health-care costs. Applicants willing to kick the habit for a Homac job were given a chance to quit. Current Homac workers who made a similar pledge were allowed to keep their jobs.
Those who meet other health goals, such as reducing their weight or cholesterol, can even get their health insurance free.
"We were at the point [where] we were going to start cutting benefits to all employees unless we did something." said Homac plant manager Lowern Keirn, who oversees 65 employees in Corcoran, Calif.
He admitted there was some grumbling about the new tobacco policy: "We got a lot of people telling us it was not fair. But is it fair to cut benefits for everyone because of a personal choice? And smoking is a personal choice."
While Homac, which has another 400 employees at its Florida headquarters, may be alone among San Joaquin Valley companies in testing for nicotine, its hiring policy reflects a trend among cost-conscious employers that are increasingly taking aim at smokers and others with unhealthy habits.
That trend has some observers worrying: How far will it go?
Weyco, a health benefits administrator in Michigan, prohibits employees from smoking and even penalizes them, charging $50 a paycheck, for spouses who smoke. The company fired four employees in 2005 after random nicotine testing revealed they had been violating the policy.
At Tribune Co. newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times, employees who smoke soon will be charged a fee of $100 per month. And last month, the Cleveland Clinic, which ranks as one of the nation's top hospitals, began nicotine-testing job applicants.
"There are a lot of companies who are realizing that this affects their bottom line," said Michelle Garcia, director of program services for the American Lung Association in Fresno, Calif.. "And when they begin focusing on health, safety and wellness, tobacco is one of the first things that comes to mind."
Studies have found that smokers take more sick days and cost employers an average of $1,429 per smoker annually in additional health costs.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also reports that from 1997 to 2001, cigarette smoking was estimated to be responsible for $167 billion in annual health-related economic losses in the United States: $75 billion in direct medical costs and $92 billion in lost productivity.
A worker-rights advocate said that though the practice of testing for nicotine before being hired may irk smokers, the law appears to be on the employers' side.
"It is really no different than an employer performing a drug test, which they are perfectly and legally entitled to do during pre-employment," said Jeremy Gruber, legal director for the National Workrights Institute in Princeton, N.J. "That door was open a long time ago."
But Gruber worries about how far employers will go to create a healthier work force.
"Not hiring someone who smokes is just the tip of the iceberg," Gruber said. "Over the last several years, employers have targeted all kinds of health-related issues that some individuals have little or no control over."
Garry Mathiason, a labor law attorney with Littler Mendelson in San Francisco, said that the courts have not given smokers legal protection when it comes to being denied a job. And though nicotine testing is still relatively rare, it isn't likely to remain so.
"A year from now, it is not going to be that unusual," Mathiason said.