European Union Legalizes Discrimination

Just when you think it cannot get any worse, the anti-smoking Gestapo advances to the next level of assault.

No Smoking or you are not employable in Europe What could be more polically incorrect than discrimination?

More importantly, what could simply be more wrong?

Yet despite the obvious lessons of history and morality against discrimination, the European Union has now clearly established the legality of discrimination under their regime.

Companies in the European Union may legally refuse to hire smokers because EU anti-discrimination laws do not protect them, the European Commission has said. And it doesn’t end there.

This one surprised me. I think it will surprise you too, because the implications and explicit statements of EU officials did not stop with discrimination against smokers.

The full story unfolds below the fold.

(Click “more…” to continue reading)

European Parliament member Catherine Stihler put a spotlight on the issue of legalized discrimination in Europe last week when she questioned European Commission spokeswoman Katharina von Schnurbein about the issue. Stihler, a Scottish Labor deputy, was responding to constituents’ reports of an Irish call-center’s job advertisement that said “smokers need not apply.”

That seems blatantly discriminatory. Smoking is legal. Tobacco is not an illicit substance. While it is true that Ireland enacted a ban against smoking in enclosed workplaces in 2004, the advertisement makes no reference to smoking in the workplace or on the job. It specifically excludes smokers from employment based on a legal activity that they choose to participate in on their own time away from the workplace.

So what is the issue?

“Our anti-discrimination legislation for the workplace covers four areas — age, disability, religion or belief and sexual orientation. Then in general the rules cover gender and race, and that’s it,” said von Schnurbein, spokeswoman for Employment and Social Affairs Commissioner Vladimir Spidla.

“There are a lot of things this doesn’t cover — you could say I don’t want an alcoholic working for me, whatever,” she said.

So in the European Union, it is illegal to discriminate in the workplace only in very specific ways. You cannot advertise that you do not want to hire a woman, or a Muslim, or a person of African descent, or someone who is gay. You cannot advertise that no one confined to a wheelchair need apply. You cannot say that a job is only open to people between the ages of 21 and 35. The European legal says that would be wrong, and illegal.

However, you can discriminate as much as you like against smokers, or people who drink alcohol, or meat-eaters, or people who eat fast food, or any number of other categories of human beings doing perfectly legal things that simply do not happen to be enumerated in the European Union regulations. Under the explanation used to rationalize discrimination against smokers, it would also be permissable to refuse to hire members of a specific political party unless you bent the rules and called that a “religion or belief.”

I wonder if it is legal in Europe to refuse to hire someone who is overweight? Probably, based on the fact that it does not fall into one of the categories listed above, that would also be perfectly legal. Or how about people who are bald, or who have a certain hair color?

If that sounds silly, it is because the situation is silly.

Except, of course, the silliness evaporates when you realize how deadly serious this really is. The European Union has just found an excuse to legalize discrimination against anyone or any group that they choose to say is outside of anti-discrimination laws.

That is definitely not silly.

The situation needs to be corrected and clarified, and discrimination removed as a tool for social engineering by politicians. If the law cannot be clarified, then it needs to be changed or amended.

That is not going to happen without a public outcry in Europe, however. Schnurbein went on to say that that there are no proposals to add on to the EU’s anti-discrimination laws.

The number of smokers in the 25 EU nations and five EU candidate states dropped to 27 percent of the population last year, down from 33 percent in 2002, according to EU figures.

Somehow, I am not surprised that the number of European smokers has dropped, considering the widespread and deliberate campaign of misinformation and propaganda that ignores or distorts reputable scientific studies concerning the myth of second-hand smoke.

I wonder how soon, given the anti-alcohol legislation that is under consideration in various parts of the EU, the number of wine and beer drinkers will drop too.

I also wonder what comes next.

Posted on Monday, August 7th, 2006 at 9:57 pm.