Legislation making it unlawful to smoke in public places is now in force in countries such as Ireland, the UK and France. In some parts of America, things have gone even further. In some states, employers screen job applicants to see if they are smokers. One company in Ohio randomly urine tests its workers to see if they’re smoking.

Recently, though, an employer in Germany approached things from another point of view. Thomas Jensen, head of a small company in Buesum, has been taken to an employment tribunal for firing non-smokers and replacing them with smokers, who, he said, "fitted in better".

The company laid off three non-smokers and said it would not be hiring any more people who don’t smoke. "Smokers have always been our best employees. Non-smokers interfere with corporate peace,” Jensen said. "They just complained all the time about smoking, and I don't like grumblers.”

Every day across the world, people are told they are no longer wanted by their employers for all sorts of reasons. They’re too old, too young, too aggressive, absent from work after serial booze binges. But being sacked for refusing to smoke is not something heavily indexed in the law reports.

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German law forbids smoking in pubs and restaurants but permits it for people working in small offices. The three sacked employees have begun proceedings for unfair dismissal, but Jensen is resolute. He notes that among the deficiencies of the problematic non-smokers was their tendency to “distance themselves from the smokers at social events”, something especially irksome, he said, as “it didn't build any team spirit”.

Professor Gary Slapper is Director of the Centre for Law at The Open University

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