Westgate Resorts CEO: I'll Fire Fat People Because It's Legal

In Florida it's legal to fire people for whatever reason you want, or no reason at all. You have no legal recourse unless you can prove a blatant case of discrimination based on religion, gender, race, or other protected class status. It's also legal for your former employer to bad-mouth you during reference checks as long as they don't make any statements that you can prove are factually incorrect. Laws that protect people from discrimination based on fat won't do anything to stop Florida employers from destroying the lives of their former employees, what needs to change are the "Right to Work" and "At Will" clauses of Florida law that don't give workers any job security. Until that happens, companies like Westgate don't have to be blatantly discriminatory to deny fat people, people of color, gay people, or anyone else the right to gainful employment.

I think things are going to have to change to one side or the other:

Either you can't discriminate against anyone for ANYTHING outside their actual job performance

OR

You can discriminate against anyone for anything

The inequality of having a situation that lies somewhere between those two sides really shows blatantly sometimes, and this is one of those times.

There have been companies that have fired some of their employees because they smoke cigarettes on their time off. There are companies that fire people over a whole bunch of things that they do outside their job--people have been fired because they hung out at a sleazy bar.

It's very sad the way things have become. Unless a radical change happens over the next couple years, I don't know if there's anything that can be truly done about it.

- = K i z z u m e = -

I don't know... I live in a "Right to Work" state myself and so far as I've seen these people tend to get exactly what they deserve for their businesses. 2nd or 3rd best.

We have one hospital here in Knoxville that will not hire anyone that smokes. As in you have to take a urine test to get hired and then take them periodically to make sure you're not smoking. Unfortunately for them, the things that earn a hospital recognition and patients is the quality of the services they provide. And the jobs you find people working in hospitals are high stress almost all the way across the board. So a higher portion of people that are in those lines of work tend to be smokers. Including the top performance percentages of the fields. So if you're going to tell a nurse with 10 years of experience that graduated Nursing School in the top 15% that she can't work in your ER because she smokes... well that's just stupidity on your part as far as I'm concerned.

Same goes for anyone that doesn't want to hire my fat self just because I'm fat. I am damn good at anything I set my mind to do, and particularly natural with learning any kind of computer software and how to relate to the public depending on what role my job casts me in (as a dispatcher I'm polite, calm, and helpful... I've learned while working security on the side for the same PD that there's a reason why police officers don't always say "please").

So let them hire the people with the "correct" BMI. I'll spare them a wave as I help their competition fly by them.

Yay Michigan for being the odd man out on this one! I think this is a strong case for FA's to work at getting weight (or physical appearance, to cover height, etc.) added to state discrimination policies. It'd be better blanket protection than going after individual companies. If FA's in Florida can get it added to the state policy, then there would be leverage to force this and other resorts to comply. Sometimes just being "the right thing to do" isn't enough. That's why there are discrimination policies in the first place.

"Either you can't discriminate against anyone for ANYTHING outside their actual job performance
OR
You can discriminate against anyone for anything"

I'm with Kizzume on this one!

And I think it's wrong--barring criminal conduct--that any employer, anywhere is allowed to have control over anyone's private life outside of work, no matter how they dress it up. The workplace ends at the business' property line. It does not extend into my home, or, if it does, they better being paying me 24/7. Maybe that's the easiest way to STOP the blatant privacy violations: If the employer wants to control you on your time off, and in effect own you, make it so the employer has to pay you during your time off.

Excellent suggestion, Rebelle.

I really think if this is put to a test in court, it would eventually crumble. Especially with public statements like that from a CEO, I think it would be difficult to find a way to reconcile that with Equal Opportunity and privacy laws.