Drug Testing in the Workplace Coming

[Deleted]

Message deleted by Rockin Ghouling.

[Malarky]

Buy poppy seed bagels for everyone. Then everyone fails.

[Deleted]

I think it is none of your employer's business and that employers use drug testing as a "screening tool" like a credit check. (Which, for most jobs I don't agree with that either...)

I also happen to believe that weed will be legal in years to come, at least for personal use. I wonder what the tool will be then to screen potential employees? BMI? Genetics?

I vote with my labor hours. I work online and live how I choose. It works for me.

[zibazinski]

It's been here for most places for years. Pretty soon, it will be used for everything including welfare. No reason to be using illegal substances. If you don't agree with the laws, and I don't, change them or live without illegal drugs.

[zibazinski]

But no way should any drugs be used in the workplace if it interferes with your work/safety and that means even legal ones.

[Sum Dum Gai]

So, if I have good reason to believe the company is about to institute drug testing, should I subtly warn my team? I think about 1/3 of them will fail if it is a "pop test". Should they get the chance to clean their act up?

Depends. I'd lean towards not saying a damn thing. One third of the workforce would get fired, which will leave your employer over a barrel when the remaining folks ask for a raise. They'll be in no position to say no and lose the ones that remain. I'm kind of an asshole though.

I have no problem with folks toking up on their off time. I don't really see the need for drug testing in the vast majority of cases. If my employer wanted to do it, I have no problem taking advantage of the situation though.

[Deleted]

Sept 30, 2012 15:00:01 GMT -5 zibazinski said:

But no way should any drugs be used in the workplace if it interferes with your work/safety and that means even legal ones.

Of course not. Why do people always assume that if you choose to indulge in weed that you want to do it at/before working? Do you go to lunch and crack open a bottle of wine or beer?

[Deleted]

Due to the nature of my job, i am already drug tested. No biggie for me. I can pee in a cup anytime, anywhere. And, based on what i do, i support that, but general routine testing of people flipping burgers and such, no, i do not.

[Deleted]

BTW, IF we are going to routine test, then EVERYONE from the POTUS on down should be tested as well and the results made known.

[Deleted]

Message deleted by Rockin Ghouling.

[Sum Dum Gai]

Do you go to lunch and crack open a bottle of wine or beer?

Sometimes. A beer with lunch never hurt anybody.

[Sum Dum Gai]

1/2 the company employees work for me, so I think I'm the one over a barrel if a bunch of them fail a whole company test initiative.

Yeah, in that case some warnings are a good idea. Honestly, I'd expect the decision makers to give notice anyway. I can't think of a single business that wants to lose a third of their workforce with little warning. That kind of thing can be crippling.

[milee]

Guess it depends on the reason for the drug testing in the first place.

If the company really wants to retain employees and doesn't necessarily think the drugs are causing problems at work, then by all means warn them. You're not trying to do a "gotcha," just following some big corporate policy, saving some money on your worker's comp premiums or doing it to comply with a contract.

On the other hand if the company is trying to reduce the workforce and has decided to do so through firing people that fail drug test (in some states that is considered firing "for cause" and the company will not have to pay unemployment, severance, etc), then don't warn them.

Personally, I think option #2 is nasty, but I've seen it done.

[rileyoday]

Will those that fail be given a chance to rehab and then retest ? If your super found out you gave a warning what would that mean?. Tell one or two and they can spread the word.

[Tennesseer]

Sept 30, 2012 15:48:59 GMT -5 @rockit said:

Dark - 1/2 the company employees work for me, so I think I'm the one over a barrel if a bunch of them fail a whole company test initiative. I'll come back to you for negotiating skillz training if it happens :-) Each of the jobs takes from several weeks to over a year to fully train new people into. If they paid anyone more $s to stay, it would only be long enough to outsource the whole operation to Asia. I think they'd do that in a heartbeat if our operation became a headache.

Have the company powers that be told you it would be okay to announce it to your employees? Is there any rationale for testing the employees?

And without going into details, what is the nature of your company's business that would require drug testing of all employees?

Non-medical field employers who drug test existing employees usually have some or all of the employees covered under DOT/FAA and DOT/FHWA regulations. And the drug testing for those specific categorized employees is for random and post accident.

All company employees might be drug tested for the following reasons: reasonable suspicion or cause, return-to-duty or follow up (after drug or alcohol rehabilitation treatment if offered as a benefit by the employer).

[susanb]

People have mentioned employee rights, but employers have rights as well.

DH can choose to use drugs at any time. I cannot stop him. However, I get to choose whether or not I want to be in a relationship with a drug user.

Similarly, any of us can choose to use drugs. Employers can choose if they want to employ drug users or not. If I choose not to submit to a drug test, I will limit my options for employment, but that too is an option available to me.

[Deleted]

I was drug tested for employment and can be randomly tested at any time. It's no big deal to me. I don't see why it's a big deal to your employees. They are breaking the law if they are smoking marijuana. It's really that simple. It's not a law they are breaking for reasons of conscience. They just want to have fun.

[Deleted]

I don't know, honestly i'd rather have people self medicate with pot than some of the other alternatives. Even legal ones.

[milee]

Sept 30, 2012 16:37:09 GMT -5 Tennesseer said:

Sept 30, 2012 15:48:59 GMT -5 @rockit said:

Dark - 1/2 the company employees work for me, so I think I'm the one over a barrel if a bunch of them fail a whole company test initiative. I'll come back to you for negotiating skillz training if it happens :-) Each of the jobs takes from several weeks to over a year to fully train new people into. If they paid anyone more $s to stay, it would only be long enough to outsource the whole operation to Asia. I think they'd do that in a heartbeat if our operation became a headache.

Have the company powers that be told you it would be okay to announce it to your employees? Is there any rationale for testing the employees?

And without going into details, what is the nature of your company's business that would require drug testing of all employees?

Non-medical field employers who drug test existing employees usually have some or all of the employees covered under DOT/FAA and DOT/FHWA regulations. And the drug testing for those specific categorized employees is for random and post accident.

All company employees might be drug tested for the following reasons: reasonable suspicion or cause, return-to-duty or follow up (after drug or alcohol rehabilitation treatment if offered as a benefit by the employer).

Tennesseer,

Companies that are not medical and do not fall under any of the regulations you mentioned may also have reason to drug test because it saves them money on their worker's comp insurance premiums. My company manufactures and we would receive a discount on worker's comp if we instituted a random drug testing policy. I did the math and after we paid for the random testing, etc, the savings weren't enough to induce me to implement the policy, but my answer might be different if we had enough employees that this would be a savings of tens of thousands of dollars.

Another little nuance most people aren't aware of is that employers and their worker's comp insurance are liable for employee's actions, even if that employee was on illegal (and against company policy) drugs or alcohol. So if you have an employee that tokes up/drinks at lunch and then runs over someone with a truck or forklift, you as the employer have 100% liability even though the employee was obviously doing something outside company policy. I've even heard of employers being sued by the family of the drunk employee. So there are some other legitimate reasons that employers wouldn't want employees who do drugs to work for them. (Yes, I understand there's no way to know if that's happening outside or during work hours, employers work with what they have and it's not a perfect system.)

[Mardi Gras Audrey]

I don't think I would tell them. They know what they are doing is llegal and choose to do it anyways. They know the risks that come along with engaging in illegal behavior.

FWIW, I used to work in manufacturing with a lot of people with addiction issues. One of them got into a bad accident at work. When they tested him, he popped for meth. I wasn't surprised. I had noticed that he was acting oddly (Lots and lots of energy at 3AM...we worked night shift) for months. When I mentioned it, the managers just thought he ws "hyper". Luckily, he didn't hurt anyone else in the accident. He easily could have though, crushing someone with pallets full of materials or the forklift.

[Tennesseer]

Milee-you mention employees operating heavy equipment (truck, forklift). Operating a truck would probably fall under DOT/FHWA regulations. Forklift is heavy equipment and it would make sense to randomly test heavy equipment operators. It's a safety issue. But to randomly drug/alcohol a receptionist (for example) is simply not cost effective.

Even among white collar workers, three martini lunches (let alone a single beer) are a thing of the past.

My work experience was working for an employer with 145,000 U.S. based employees and we only drug/alcohol tested for the reasons I mentioned earlier.

[Deleted]

Message deleted by Rockin Ghouling.

[Tennesseer]

Rock It-you say drivers. Are they DOT/FHWA drivers?

[Deleted]

Sept 30, 2012 15:49:14 GMT -5 Sum Dum Gai said:

Do you go to lunch and crack open a bottle of wine or beer?

Sometimes. A beer with lunch never hurt anybody.

When I worked for Kaiser, drinking for any reason, at any work sponsored event or during working hours, lunch, etc... was immediate grounds for dismissal. And, I think it should be.

[Sum Dum Gai]

Drinking a beer with a meal, for your average sized adult, doesn't impair you. I'm not a neurosurgeon, I'm not operating heavy equipment, and I'm not working in a lab setting. If I mistype a command, I can hit backspace and fix it. I'm also talking about literally one beer. Not a whole bottle of wine. Not hard liquor. Not a 40. Not two or three drinks. One beer with my bangers and mash.

[wvugurl26]

My aunt's company allows drinking at work. You can have a beer with lunch if you wish. Two of their major product lines and their related spin offs revolve around food/beverages.

Now say my brother's job where he is working on Metro trains and around high voltage, a beer or two with lunch is probably blurring the lines. They can get in trouble for showing up to work with alcohol still in their system.

I think the employer could have an issue if they randomly decide to institute testing. It is one thing if you consented to it when you took the job but to implement it later, you would need consent.

[happyhoix]

As long as the employeer announces the start of the drug testing program and applies it evenly throughout all the employees it's legal. At my last company we had pre-employment, random and post accident drug testing; this isn't uncommon, especially not in industries where someone could get injured or injure someone else when intoxicated at work. At that job we had people using forklifts, trucks, climbing heights, etc.

Prior to starting the drug testing, they made an announcement a month prior to the first test, and even explained how long different drugs will stay in your system (if I'm remembering right, pot stayed the longest - 30 days). They still lost 2/3 of their minimum wage warehouse workers - I guess they figured the job was so crappy it wasn't worth giving up smoking dope over it.

[wvugurl26]

Oct 1, 2012 7:10:15 GMT -5 happyhoix said:

As long as the employeer announces the start of the drug testing program and applies it evenly throughout all the employees it's legal. At my last company we had pre-employment, random and post accident drug testing; this isn't uncommon, especially not in industries where someone could get injured or injure someone else when intoxicated at work. At that job we had people using forklifts, trucks, climbing heights, etc.

Prior to starting the drug testing, they made an announcement a month prior to the first test, and even explained how long different drugs will stay in your system (if I'm remembering right, pot stayed the longest - 30 days). They still lost 2/3 of their minimum wage warehouse workers - I guess they figured the job was so crappy it wasn't worth giving up smoking dope over it.

If they do an announcement like that then ok. I was thinking they could have problems if they show up one morning and announce everyone will now be drug tested. Then again maybe they would use that as a way to cut the workforce like milee said.

I could be drug tested for my current job and have been in the past. I agreed to that when I took the job. Maybe you don't but I would think one would have to provide some sort of notice of changing policies if they have never drug tested before.

[Deleted]

It is really something that is going to wind up hurting the poor and those near poverty level trying to get on their feet. They will implement these kinds of stringent standards for cashiers and burger flippers and put them out in the street while our House of Lords could be bombed out of their minds voting on bills or pressing the Red Nuke button and that kind of testing won't apply to them.

[Tennesseer]

Oct 1, 2012 7:31:19 GMT -5 @shooby said:

It is really something that is going to wind up hurting the poor and those near poverty level trying to get on their feet. They will implement these kinds of stringent standards for cashiers and burger flippers and put them out in the street while our House of Lords could be bombed out of their minds voting on bills or pressing the Red Nuke button and that kind of testing won't apply to them.

Employer mandated random, post accident and reasonable suspicion alcohol and drug testing will no more impact the poor and near poverty level employees as a whole than any other social or economic group of employees. Alcohol abuse or drug use knows no social or economic boundaries.