No Smoking on Hire Line
The Alexandria, Va., Fire Department will no longer hire applicants who smoke.
Chief Charles H. Rule and Rolfe E. Schroeder, city personnel director, remarked that they would not be surprised if their new policy is challenged in court. Both Michael A. Connor, secretary of the Alexandria fire fighters’ union, and Lawrence Selden, board chairman of the Northern Virginia Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, have voiced opposition to the new policy.
Under the Virginia heart and lung act, there is automatic presumption that any heart or lung ailment of a fire fighter is jobrelated, and Rule commented, “I feel it’s ludicrous when a fire fighter, who smokes four packs of cigarettes a day and develops emphysema can have this disability deemed job-related.”
Schroeder explained that each employee who retires on disability costs the city an average of an additional $180,000 in pension benefits.
