EU employers free to refuse jobs to smokers
By Andrew Bounds in Brussels
Financial Times


Updated: 9:11 p.m. ET Aug 4, 2006
Employers in Europe are free to refuse smokers a job, confirming their
status as the continent's last pariahs.

The European Commission, which has presided over a vast array of
anti-discrimination legislation in the past six years, has confirmed that it
does not cover tobacco users.

Asked whether a job advert saying that "smokers need not apply" breached
European law, Vladimir Spidla, the commissioner for employment and equal
opportunities, said it did not.

"A job advertisement saying that 'smokers need not apply' would not seem to
fall under any of the?.?.?.?prohibited grounds [under EU legislation]," he

The reply was vetted by the Commission's lawyers, Mr Spidla, a former Czech
premier, said EU anti-discrimination law only "prohibits discrimination on
the grounds of racial or ethnic origin, disability, age, sexual orientation
and religion and belief in employment and other fields." .

Mrs Stihler, a British Labour party MEP, had taken up the case of an Irish
call centre company that placed such an advert in May for a constituent. The
Irish government had said it did not breach any law.

Philip Tobin, the director of Dotcom Directories, the company concerned,
said smokers were anti-social and took too much sick leave.

He told Irish radio in May: "If people are smoking on a coffee break or in
their own time, they come back into the office and they stink. We have a
very small office here and it would make things unbearable for the other
staff.

"If these people can ignore so many warnings and all that evidence then they
haven't got the level of intelligence that I am looking for. Smoking is
idiotic."

Forest, a British pro-smoking pressure group, said it was distressed but not
surprised by Mr Spidla's view.

"We all know employers discriminate on all sorts of grounds, from being too
fat to the wrong colour hair. But for it to be so overt is depressing and
shows that smokers are fair game," said Simon Clark, Forest's director. "If
people are asked whether they smoke in a job interview, we advise them to
lie. If you are a social smoker who enjoys a cigarette in the pub in the
evening it should not be your employers' business."

Mr Spidla's response "opens a real can of worms", he said, adding: "Who will
be next? People who drink or who are too fat?"

Forest said that European humans rights law guarantees the right to a
private life and that it would bring a test case on behalf of anyone sacked
for smoking outside office hours.

Mrs Stihler, an anti-smoking campaigner, welcomed Mr Spidla's support for a
workplace ban on smoking included in his answer. While Ireland and the UK
have led the way in this area, other EU members such as Germany are more
equivocal. But she asked: "It does make you wonder about other areas such as
people who can't drive or those who drink."

The World Health Organisation announced this year it would no longer hire
smokers to work at its Geneva headquarters.

Mr Spidla, a veteran anti-communist and anti-smoker, is studying whether to
introduce legislation to protect workers from the effect of passive smoking.
That could might one day make it too risky for businesses to employ those
who indulge.

Wowser!!! Sounds like your kinda guy, Chicken Little. Now if we can be
sure that the sky won't fall . . . well, everything can once again be
Mom, apple pie, and shopping malls.

FYI, K-Mart is having a sale on white sheets

Without the stinkin smoke. Thank you.

That's why the good lord invented directional signs. If ya' smell
smoke, pick yer' uptight self a direction and follow the signs.

You no like-a our stinkin' smoke, yellow hat? Then take a hike!
Doofus.

I can't imagine where the smokers will be working & still stink up the air.
The number of places is dwindling real fast...I suppose you could work at
home & your wife is a smoker to. Most smokers I know aren't even allowed to
smoke in their own home no less at their job location.

Most smokers I know aren't even allowed to


I don't know if a nanny exists who could stop me.
You to spend less time with spineless people.