A new U-Haul hiring policy disqualifies applicants who use nicotine products, which public health experts call discrimination against working-class men and women.
The moving company announced last month that, starting on Feb. 1, it will throw out applications from people who use nicotine products, including regular cigarettes and vapes, in 21 states that have legalized the hiring practice.
The hiring rule outlaws nicotine use both on and off the job. According to Lewis Maltby, head of the workers’ civil rights advocacy group, the National Workrights Institute, the company’s policy not only keeps people, mostly working-class adults, from engaging in a legal habit but also violates their private lives.
“The issue here is not about smoking. The issue is, does your boss have a right to control your private life,” Maltby told the Washington Examiner. “We’ve all got bad habits. Some of us eat too much junk food, don’t go to the gym enough, don’t eat our vegetables. Whether or not we want to fix our bad habits is up to us, not our boss.”
The policy, Maltby said, treats nicotine users like people who use illicit substances, and it’s only a matter of time before other legal habits and behaviors become barriers to employment.
“Once you accept the idea that it’s all right for an employer to control someone’s private life because it affects their health, there’s no private life left,” he said.
Jessica Lopez, U-Haul chief of staff, called the policy “a responsible step in fostering a culture of wellness at U-Haul” in a written statement. The company did not respond to requests for comment.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, people who live at or below the federal poverty level are more likely to smoke than those with incomes above the line, and on average, smoke twice as long as wealthier people. Similarly, people with only a high school education are likely to smoke for twice as many years as those with college or advanced degrees.
The new hiring rule may not constitute legal discrimination but could single out workers in lower socioeconomic classes who want to work for U-Haul.
“Rates of smoking have plummeted, but people who remain smokers tend to have lower education and income levels. These people will be affected the most,” said Dr. Michael Siegel, a professor at the Boston University School of Public Health.
U-Haul framed the rule as a means to promote a healthy lifestyle for workers, a new component of the “Healthier You” wellness program that includes nicotine cessation assistance for U-Haul employees, reimbursements for gym memberships, and access to diet plans created by registered dietitians.
“It’s a terribly misguided policy. It is not a progressive public health policy because one of the principles of public health is to encourage people to be healthy, not to punish them when they’re not,” Siegel said. “There’s no question that this policy is discriminatory because it’s based on essentially discriminating against people based on a group to which they belong that has nothing to do with their job qualifications.”
U-Haul said it would also take advantage of the policy in 17 states that allow companies to screen for nicotine use, and applicants will have to consent to submit nicotine screening test results later in the application process.
Prohibiting smokers from applying for jobs has become an increasingly common practice in the healthcare industry, especially in hospitals. For instance, the Cleveland Clinic implemented a tobacco-free hiring policy in 2007. Missouri’s Saint Francis Medical Center enacted a similar policy in 2011.
Siegel added that U-Haul’s hiring policy would likely set off a domino effect of similar policies at other companies.
“I think that smokers have been a stigmatized population, and nicotine use itself has become demonized as many anti-tobacco groups have been speaking out against smoking,” Siegel said. “The crusade has turned from an anti-smoking crusade to an anti-nicotine crusade.”
The new rule, however, will not affect current U-Haul employees, whether they work in the corporate offices or drive the trucks. People who already work at U-Haul will continue to have access to the company’s tobacco cessation guidance program, which public health experts agree is a more effective way to promote healthy habits.
Dr. Joanna Cohen, director of the Institute for Global Tobacco Control at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said the company would be better off providing all employees, including new hires, with smoking cessation aids through the company’s wellness program, such as nicotine patches and nicotine gum, rather than outlawing nicotine products both on and off the job.
Given that most smokers start in their teens, Cohen said U-Haul’s hiring policy places too much blame on people who were likely subject to relentless marketing efforts by Big Tobacco, complete with a deluge of ads featuring Joe Camel and Marlboro Man when they were young.
“Unfortunately, people who are addicted to nicotine normally become addicted in their youth,” Cohen told the Washington Examiner. “This is more blaming the victim and not really helping in the best way possible.”
