A little-noticed bill moving through Congress would allow companies to require employees to undergo genetic testing or risk paying a penalty of thousands of dollars, and would let employers see that genetic and other health information. Giving employers such power is now prohibited by legislation including the 2008 genetic privacy and nondiscrimination law known as GINA. The new bill gets around that landmark law by stating explicitly that GINA and other protections do not apply when genetic tests are part of a “workplace wellness” program. The bill, HR 1313, was approved by a House committee on Wednesday, with all 22 Republicans supporting it and all 17 Democrats opposed.
However, the reason for the bill has less to do with the suspected discrimination of employees based on their genetics, which is to say, ethnicity, and more to do with, apparently, religion. Namely, a source within the committee who requested anonymity, told the Cincinnati Morning Star that the reason why the employer lobby pushed the Republicans into passing the bill was because they were “worried about the religious aspects of their employees’ personal lives, but could not ask them directly, as that would be considered offensive and discriminatory.” Apparently, companies are shifting their focus towards hiring only staff that have a strong connection to their religious side and are God-fearing.
“The moment you have a liberal employee that also happens to be an atheist or something or other, that’s when you know they don’t take their job as seriously as their traditionally-inclined coworkers, which also tends to ruin the work ethic in the office,” the source revealed. “It’s common knowledge that God-fearing workers have an innately different approach to their job; they’re more serious, more hardworking, more productive and, most importantly, are willing to work longer hours compared to their liberal colleagues. All these qualities simply make them the more desirable type of workers to have on the job, especially since everybody’s on about discrimination and equal rights and whatnot these days.”
“Moreover,” the source continued, “there’s also another aspect of God-fearing employees that makes them particularly attractive for companies and businesses. For example, liberal workers also tend to have a disruptive sexual preference and influence on the collective, which can cause a mutiny, let’s put it like that. If you have 9 workers who are God-fearing and traditional and extremely hardworking, and you also have a tenth one who’s an atheist and also happens to be homosexual, that’s something that can very easily bring about a whole lot of problems for you as an employer, and especially for the 9 workers who don’t want to work in that sort of environment.”
“That’s why it’s important for companies to have insight into the results of their employees’ genetic tests, so they can see right off the bat which of them are at the risk of becoming disruptive and disobedient. As an employer, you want a homogenous structure of workers to be handling challenges on a daily basis. If you have one or several of them who keep making waves and pissing off the rest of the guys and you realize you have to fire them for it, you’re at risk of being sued for discrimination, mobbing or whatever. This is just a simple way to avoid getting into a situation like that,” the source concluded.
