The Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department requires its job applicants to sign an affidavit promising never to smoke – even at home. Alaska Airlines, based in Seattle, makes prospective employees submit to a urine test for nicotine in order to get hired.

“I just think it’s discrimination,” said state Rep. Dawn Morrell, a Democrat from Puyallup. “What’s next, fat people?”

Washington state legislators, who passed a gay civil rights bill earlier this legislative session, are turning their attention to other kinds of discrimination. A bill banning job discrimination against veterans made it through the state House on Tuesday. Smokers could be next.

Thirty states have “lifestyle discrimination” laws forbidding most employers from refusing to hire people who engage in legal behaviors off the job, such as smoking and drinking. Morrell wants Washington to join that list.

Business groups are fighting her proposal, saying government should not tell private employers who they have to hire.

The bill, House Bill 2614, is having mixed success in Olympia. Last week, a House committee narrowed the bill so it would forbid discrimination against only smokers – leaving drinkers and over-eaters out of luck. But it is the smokers who are really feeling the lash anyway, bill supporters say, as employers reject them to save health insurance costs.

Morrell is a critical care nurse at Good Samaritan Hospital in Puyallup. She’s been known to lecture people she sees smoking about the dangers of tobacco, and she gave her husband all kinds of grief until he agreed to give it up. But she argues that employers go too far when they won’t hire smokers who never light up during work hours but get a nicotine fix in the privacy of their homes.

Her proposal could soon get a vote on the House floor. The bill has attracted 21 co-sponsors and survived an attempt by Republican legislators to kill it in committee. If it passes into law, employers could still demand tobacco-free workplaces but couldn’t base hiring and firing on whether workers smoke off the clock.

Morrell said there’s no way to know how many employers in Washington won’t hire smokers. The American Civil Liberties Union estimates that 6,000 companies across the nation won’t. Spokane-based utility Avista Corp. has fired employees who pledged to stop smoking but were later caught lighting up. Some Washington cities, including the City of Tacoma, are considering not hiring smokers.

“It’s not an active issue at the moment, (but) it’s not a dead issue either,” said Steve Marcotte, Tacoma’s city finance director.

The City of Tacoma estimated last summer that it would save $45,180 a year in medical costs if it stopped hiring smokers. Double-digit health insurance cost increases in recent years have left employers desperately trying to figure out how to control that spending.

Testimony against Morrell’s bill has focused on the potential of costly legal action from employees who claim smoking got them canned.

“This gives folks a new reason to get into disputes and sue,” Gary Smith, executive director and lobbyist for the Bellevue-based Independent Business Association, said at a recent hearing of the House Commerce and Labor Committee.

Alaska Airlines, which has about 10,000 employees, started in 1985 requiring job applicants to pass a nicotine test. Company spokeswoman Amanda Tobin said in an interview that smokers drive up health insurance costs. Besides, she said, it can be hard to take a smoke break when you work for an airline. Smoking is banned on airplanes and strictly limited at airports.

“It’s been largely successful. The vast majority of our employees are grateful for the pro-health stance the company has shown,” she said.

Sean Cockerham: 360-754-6093

sean.cockerham@thenewstribune.com