Weyco

answer questions using attached transcript and instructions

“Weyco® Incorporated Fires Employees Who Smoke”  Please respond to the following:

· The e-Activity presents two contrasting points of view. The employees who have been laid off and Weyco® Incorporated have different interests and desires, and the decision made by Weyco to provide employees who smoke with an ultimatum—quit smoking or leave—impacts these two parties very differently. Determine whether any personal rights are in dispute between these two parties. Compare and contrast the ways in which act utilitarians and rule utilitarians might respond to Weyco® Incorporated’s decisions differently. 

· Based on the e-Activity, compare and contrast the different ways in which utilitarians, libertarians, and Rawlsian egalitarians would evaluate Weyco® Incorporated’s decision to lay off employees who smoke. Defend the position you find most compelling with good moral reasoning.

e-activity is attached in other file called VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

If a Michigan a company has been firing employees who smoke, even on their own time, and the owner of Weyco Incorporated says smoking effects healthcare cost and worker productivity, but others say he has no business telling people what they can do and can’t do outside the job.  

Anita Appalito, Kara Stiffler, Tina Prader, and Marie Van Amber were all fired for refusing to take a test that would determine whether they  

smoke cigarettes.  They join us along with Michigan State Senator, Verg Bernero.  

Has this given you cause?  

Have you actually thought about quitting smoking in light of having the choice between smoking and employment?  

>>Yes I have, and actually I did try to quit.  

I wasn’t successful by their deadlines, but again,  

it’s not really about smoking to us, it’s about privacy.  

>>Yeah, so Marie, basically for you, and your fellow,  

former co-workers there, you feel like it’s your right to smoke?  

>>That’s right.  

>>All right, okay.  

Well let me just give you a little bit about Weyco’s statement, because we asked them about, you know,their feelings about all of this, and one of the things that they said is the CBC reports  

that smoking costs 75 billion dollars a year in excess medical bills,  

82 billion dollars in lost productivity.  In Michigan alone, tobacco kills 16 thousand people annually.  That’s more than alcohol, Aids, car crashes, illegal drugs,murders and suicide combined.  

These folks sound like, you know, they might have a point here.  

Does anybody want to respond to that?  

>> Verg Bernero: I’d be happy to respond.  

>>Go ahead.  

>> Verg Bernero: You know,  

I notice you didn’t mention obesity in there.  

Obesity is a problem that we struggle with in Michigan  

and across the country, personally I fight the battle  

of the bulge, and it costs this state plenty,  

billions of dollars, obesity related healthcare,  

but we don’t fire people for being overweight.  

You know, you can encourage them, you can offer help,  

but you don’t fire people.  

This is un-American, what they’re doing.  

And it is not about smoking, I don’t endorse smoking,  

I don’t smoke, but you know what, I have two employees  

who do smoke, I’m not going to throw them out on the street.  

They need help, they need support, they’re trying to quit,  

and the fact is that Nicotine is one  

of the most addictive substances known to man, so its, you know,  

its corporate America that’s sort  

of got these folks addicted, and now we want  

to throw them to the wolves?