EMPLOYEE TESTING ENSURES OUR SAFETY

It's good news for the travelling public that B.C. Ferries is going
to implement a mandatory drug and alcohol testing policy.
Unfortunately, the policy does not go far enough in enhancing passenger safety.

The policy allows mandatory testing only under three circumstances --
for reasonable cause; following a "significant" event; and where an
employee returns to work after demonstrated abuse or dependency.

The reasonable cause provision appears to give supervisors the power
to require testing of employees who are visibly impaired on the job.

However, it leaves a gap in evaluating the sobriety of the
supervisors themselves. Is a subordinate, for example, empowered to
ask a superior to submit to a test, or would that be mutinous?

Waiting until after a "significant" event, however that is defined,
hardly sounds like a deterrent.

Testing employees who have problems makes sense. It makes more sense
to identify those problems before they force those troubled employees
to take time off work.

Of course, the policies have to be constructed so that they don't
become tools in witch hunts.

Nevertheless, for the sake of public safety, substance abuse must be
taken seriously -- even if there's no evidence that such abuse played
a part in the sinking of the Queen of the North, which prompted the
debate about drug testing. However, a Transportation Safety Board
report indicated that crew members regularly smoked marijuana between shifts.

B.C. Ferries president David Hahn wants the federal government to
pass legislation empowering ferry operators to conduct random tests.

While the federal transportation minister has argued the ferry
corporation already has that power, Ferries spokesman Mark Stefanson
is worried a stronger policy will be challenged under human rights legislation.

That's a challenge worth meeting. If B.C. Ferries needs to test a
mandatory policy in the Supreme Court, so be it.

Of course, it would make much more sense for the ferry corporation
and the B.C. Ferry and Marine Workers' Union to reach an agreement on
more stringent mandatory testing. It would benefit both B.C. Ferries
and union members.

So far, union president Jackie Miller hasn't said whether she
supports expanding drug testing, but she hasn't ruled it out either.

Our guess is if the procedures are fairly and evenly applied -- right
on up to the president -- then it would be easier for the union and
the company to work out a solution.