Role model bonus for non-smoking teachers

[Martin-O2]

Hey guys,

A school in Switzerland has proposed offering a "good role model" bonus of 5 extra days holiday for non smoking teaching staff. "Staff at the Schillingsrain Schulheim institute near Basel, Switzerland, will receive five more days of annual leave than their smoker colleagues should the initiative go ahead."

The idea is to set a positive example to students at the school and reduce the number of sick days taken by staff and statistically smokers are more susceptible to colds, coughs and other more serious ailments linked to long term smoking. 

Full article here

What do you guys make of this? A good idea or more is the employer overstepping their boundaries? 

[Martin-O2]

I agree that this could be seen as treating smokers unfairly. It's very unlikely we would see a similar scheme here but the Swiss might have different rules. 

[Anonymous]

I took a more in depth look at this last night, a lot of people seemed to be applying British ideals of discrimination to this issue, whereas it is in Switzerland and British ideals are therefore to a point irrelevant. It turns out theat Switzerlands stance on discrimination has been criticised by no less than the UN.

As opposed to the UK where there is a comprehensive discrimination law and policy in place seeking to give a wide level of cover to as many people as possible, the Swiss have passed a series of laws aimed at specific sectors, which is why many minorities cannot claim discrimination in Switzerland.

An interesting article was around equal pay in the Swiss economy between the sexes. However, their is still a 20% discrepancy, some of this is down to the motherhood factor. However, for the remainder the Swiss seem to be expecting the organisations to police this themselves, which coupled with a culture where it is considered impolite to dicuss pay/conditions, means that the laws are not being enforced.

Therefore if minorities and women are not getting anywhere with regards to discrimination, it is unlikely that smokers will, also I quit four years ago and I like the idea.

[Martin-O2]

Very interesting @Anonymous thanks for sharing. It sounds like smokers would be at the very back of the queue when it comes to raising complaints about potential unfairness over such a policy. 

[Curr946]

Off topic again (sorry guys) but the tax paid in the UK on tobacco is huge, and although the government bang on about the cost to the nhs, the tax revenues must cover this. If everyone in the UK decided to stop smoking and drinking the government would pee itself. Might even be enough to drive the hob knobs to drink hahaha

[Martin-O2]

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@Curr946 wrote:
Off topic again (sorry guys) but the tax paid in the UK on tobacco is huge, and although the government bang on about the cost to the nhs, the tax revenues must cover this. If everyone in the UK decided to stop smoking and drinking the government would pee itself. Might even be enough to drive the hob knobs to drink hahaha

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Indeed, tax on tobacco products is estimated at around 9.5 Billion annually and direct costs for treating smoking related illnesses at between 2.7 and 5.2 billion. There are other economic factors to consider but smokers do cover the costs of any treatment that might be needed with taxes. 

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