ON-JOB DRUG TESTING DEFENDED AS DETERRENT

Transport Officials, City Politicians Say Public Safety Paramount As
TTC Considers Screening Practice

It may be unpopular with workers and human rights advocates, but
testing employees for drugs and alcohol deters on-the-job use of
both, say some experts and employers.

"It clearly does act as a deterrent. It's just like (tickets for)
speeding down the highway - you can lose your licence," said Jim
Devlin, president of Coach Canada, which uses both random and
pre-employment tests on drivers and others in its 800-employee workforce.

Devlin was defending the practice in light of the TTC's plan to
consider testing for its workers as part of a broader safety review
this summer.

The issue has taken on new urgency in light of an April 2007 accident
that killed a subway maintenance worker. Antonio Almeida, 38,
reportedly had drugs in his system when he died, after a piece of
equipment wasn't properly secured to the work car he was driving.

While it's not believed he had anything to do with causing the
tragedy, Almeida had been suspended for smoking marijuana during
working hours within a year before his death. Earlier this week, a
TTC bus driver was fired for being drunk on the job.

GO Transit does not screen its bus drivers for drug use, but new
train crews employed by Bombardier and expected to be working on all
GO trains by August are being screened upon hiring, said GO's chief
of rail operations, Mike Wolcyyk. He had no details on the nature of
the testing.

Making sure TTC operators are not impaired is a matter of public
safety, Toronto Mayor David Miller said yesterday.

"I think we have to be extremely careful with public safety. The TTC
operators and other heavy-equipment users have to be absolutely clean
and sober, for obvious reasons," he told reporters in Ottawa.

"I think the TTC needs to review everything, including what
management is doing today," he said. "The supervisors have a very
important role to make sure somebody who comes to work impaired
doesn't drive a bus."

Elected TTC commissioner Peter Milczyn (Ward 5, Etobicoke-Lakeshore)
said he was in favour of testing, under certain conditions.

"When there are employees who have a history of drug and alcohol
abuse, and they are operating equipment, there should be some kind of
mechanism to follow up," he said. "Are we going to go the route of
random testing for every operator of equipment? That's a very
complicated issue.

Such screening is common among U.S. public transit agencies, but in
Canada, only Windsor screens its bus drivers.

About half of Transit Windsor's 161 full-time drivers have been
submitting to random Breathalyzer and urine tests over the past
decade because they want to qualify to drive across the border to
Detroit, said Patrick Delmore, director of operations. Tests are
administered by an outside lab approved by the U.S.

Delmore refused to comment on how effective the practice is in
reducing drug and alcohol use on the job.

But David Bradley, president of the Ontario Trucking Association,
said it's an effective tool for the 60 per cent of Ontario truckers
who undergo screening because they, too, drive across the border.

"We're tested pre-employment, we're tested post accident, and we're
tested if there's a reasonable suspicion - and each (trucking
company) operator has to have some of its supervisory staff trained
to spot the signs (of drug use or inebriation)."