SAFETY VS PRIVACY AS WORKERS SMOKE POT

In the construction industry, managers want competent and sober
people doing the job for both quality of work and safety's sake. One
site manager believed two of his workers in Toronto were smoking
marijuana on their lunch breaks so he videotaped them in their pickup
truck, accused them of smoking up and fired them.

The case is before the Ontario Labour Relations Board. What is no
longer before the board is the videotape.

The labour board said the video is inadmissible as evidence. It
violated the two alleged dopers' right to privacy.

With that tossed, it's down to he said versus he/he said. Good luck
to the manager, who is worried these guys may have been stoned and,
as such, may not have been as careful on the job as someone not under
the influence of drugs.

If they were high that could compromise their safety and the safety
of their co-workers. That's a serious concern. But the board didn't
like the fact the manager pulled out a video camera to support his
eyesight and resultant testimony at a board hearing.

Did he use infrared technology to penetrate tinted glass, or was this
in plain sight? If it was in plain sight, the board erred greatly.

One wonders how the board would rule if we turned back the clock and
had the Los Angeles police officers who beat the heck out of Rodney
King in 1992 come before the board, complaining about bystander
George Holliday filming their attack. Would the board have tossed
that video footage?

We understand the desire to protect an individual's right to privacy.
The Big Brother concept is scary and intrusive. Yet given the
difficulty in proving someone is high on marijuana and the fact it
was one man's report against two others, one can understand why the
supervisor wanted to videotape the incident. Is it invasive? Perhaps
if these guys were in their own garage or inside their home, but this
was at a construction site in broad daylight. Concerns of worker
safety must hold some merit here.

If the two workers were high and someone, including themselves, had
been hurt on the job, the site manager would certainly be in front of
a Ministry of Labour board but to face charges of workplace safety violations.