Conference rocks::weight_control

596.0. "Enforced Incentives?" by BUNYIP::QUODLING (Innovation, but no Momentum) Fri Aug 10 1990 17:18

Article         3542
Just off Usenet. Comments?
   
   From: [email protected] (Avery Ray Colter)
Newsgroups: alt.activism,soc.rights.human,talk.politics.misc
Subject: Boycott U-Haul: They Dock the Pay of Fat Employees.
Date: 9 Aug 90 02:40:44 GMT
 
 
NAAFA NATIONAL NEWSLETTER
 
Volume XIX, Issue 5
July 1990
 
U-HAUL Penalizing Fat Employees
 
Just Imagine: Your paycheck arrives and along with deductions for tax
withholding is a $5 deduction because you're "overweight". 
 
Or just imagine: Your spouse comes home and says, "Honey, there's $5 less
in my pay envelope because you didn't stick to your diet."
 
Sound farfetched?
 
Not if you work for U-Haul International.
 
U-Haul International, Inc., based in Phoenix, AZ, began a new wellness
program on April 1st for their 13,500 employees nationwide. Employees
and their spouses who do not fit into U-Haul's height/weight guidelines,
or who smoke, are being fined $5 per person, per two-week pay period.
This translates into a $130 annual penalty for an employee weighing more
(or less!) than U-Haul finds acceptable.
 
And if the employee's spouse doesn't meet the requirements either, that's
another $130 annual fine. The penalties are deducted from the workers'
paychecks.
 
Employees and spouses are required to sign a statement declaring that they
are non-smokers and that their weight is within the company's guidelines.
If they lie about their weight, it is grounds for dismissal.
 
According to U-Haul, the plan was developed in an attempt to combat the
rising cost of providing health care coverage to employees. "All we're
trying to do is raise the common consciousness of our employees and reduce
claims," said Harry DeShong, executive vice president. According to
E. J. "Joe" Schoen, chairman of Americo, U-Haul's parent company:
"Pure and simple. It gives a reason to make healthy choices."
 
U-Haul considers their guidelines to be quite liberal. For example, a
5'5" person can weigh from 101 to 180 pounds, and a 6' person can weigh
130-215. If the employee or spouse stops smoking or brings their weight
to within the acceptable limits, the fines will be refunded.
 
Not all the employees are happy with the new policy. One told reporters,
"People around here feel like their constitutional rights have been taken
away." Others have described the plan as "horrible" and "just not right".
 
Louis Rhodes, the executive director of the Arizona ACLU section, called
the plan "barbaric, on the face of it." He said, "It's unconscionable that
someone would try to get away with something like this. It's just 
outrageous. It looks like people are being treated like indentured servants
at U-Haul."
 
Commentary
 
We have been watching the growth of wellness programs in American industry
and government for some time. Most programs have involved "voluntary"
cooperation; but it would seem that pressure from one's employer, no
matter how mild or friendly, may not make a program feel voluntary at all!
Some firms offer employees the use of health clubs; in fact they encourage
attendance at aerobics sessions, stop-smoking classes, and weight or stress
reduction groups. But this is the first large program we have heard of that
actually penalizes employees for their weight and their spouses' weight.
 
It's time that our legal and legislative systems take a serious look at
the contitutionality of such an invasion into the private lives of the
American workforce.
 
Discrimination based on size hits women, certain ethnic and racial groups,
older people, and the poor the hardest, simply because there is a higher
degree of obesity within these groups. Based on this alone, such a wellness
program violates the very essence of the American ideal.
 
Some researchers now believe that 70% of all obesity is genetic in origin.
While the work is just beginning, a number of specific genes for fatness
have already been located by genetic researchers. If this is the case,
how can any employer be justified in creating an arbitrary height/weight
guideline, no matter how "liberal", and then expecting behavioral changes
in their employees in order to comply with that guideline, when those
employees may have to fight their very genetic make-up to avoid a fine?
 
The law protects the disabled, and by the very definition of the word
"disabled", employers could expect the possibility of higher medical
costs in caring for an employee with physical problems - but they can't
discriminate against those workers by law.
 
So whether you want to consider fatness genetic, a component of race or
ethinicity, a characteristic more prevalent in the female gender, the
result of simply getting older, or a "condition" or disease, there are
grounds to say that U-Haul's policy is out of line. In fact, the only
way U-Haul could possibly justify their position is if they could prove
that obesity is a PURELY behavioral issue. And there's just too much
evidence to the contrary to accept that assertion.
 
 
WHAT YOU CAN DO!
 
As potential U-Haul customers, you can write to U-Haul's Chairman of the
Board to express your opinion on their employment policies:
 
        Mr. E. J. Schoen, Chairman
        Americo/U-Haul International
        2727 North Central Avenue
        Phoenix, AZ 85004
 
You can also remember U-Haul's weight policy when you're in the market
for a truck, trailer, self-storage rental, or set of tire chains.
 
-- 
Avery Ray Colter    Internet: [email protected] | {apple|hplabs}!well!avery
     o/~ Mama, mama, mama, keep those skinny girls at home,
         o/~ `Cause this skinny boy wants a BIG FAT BLONDE!   - The Rainmakers
   

    Reminds me of a story (by Ray Bradbury?) about an organization to help
    you stop smoking or any other habit.  It's the Mafia approach -- seemed
    to be terribly effective....

    Re: 1  FYI - That was Stephen King (alias Richard Bachman) and the
    story was called Quitters, Inc.  Great parallel there. 
    
    Janet