BALANCING RIGHTS, SAFETY

Use Of Random Drug Tests A Troubling Infringement

Sadly, drug impairment in the workplace has become something employers must
contend with in any industrial activity centred on moving machinery. But,
how can they know who's fit to work and who is not?

Random testing has been proposed as one answer, and enjoys the conditional
acceptance of Alberta's human rights commission. Yet, balancing the
obligation of employers to provide safe workplaces with the privacy rights
of their employees requires fine judgment.

Unfortunately, in the opinion of some oil field advocacy groups, it also
requires an extension of what the human rights commission has so far
countenanced -- making tests mandatory in not only the highest-risk,
"safety sensitive" areas to somewhat lower-risk, "semi-safety-sensitive" areas.

It is a disturbing proposal, the more so because the government has chosen
not to release the report publicly.

With drug abuse a common headache in the oilpatch, rig operators are bound
to find themselves butting up against human rights codes as they strive to
meet Occupational Health and Safety regulations to provide safe workplaces.
Yet, this could so easily become the thin and icy end of a wedge leading
from modest and supportable good intentions all the way to a culture of
intrusion unlike anything experienced in this country.

About two years ago, a number of oilfield associations got together with
the Alberta government to discuss standards for a Petroleum Safety Council.
The government has yet to release the report of this group's deliberations,
something that the associations say hinders their efforts to harmonize
standards in their industry.

It appears possible the government shares our concerns. While it's not hard
to define a safety-sensitive area -- a rig platform, perhaps -- where
exactly do semi-safety-sensitive areas begin and end? It seems absurd, for
instance, to suppose somebody driving an oilfield truck down a muskeg road
should be obliged to provide a sample on demand. Yet, driving accidents are
the leading single cause of fatalities in the industry.

And what is permitted in the oilfield can hardly be denied generally. Thus
the commissars take over.

The problem lies in the grey areas. It is easy to agree that rig workers
high on crack would be a danger to themselves and others, and that driving
drunk is as dangerous on oilpatch roads as anywhere else.

But, the science of drug testing is hardly exact. Trace elements of abused
substances may linger long after having been ingested, and well past their
ability to impair judgment. If someone does something stupid on Friday
night, they should still be ready to work on Monday morning -- but may also
test positively. Should they be sent home? Fired?

More broadly, are we ready for a society in which the principle of
precautionary inspection is widely accepted? Even at a police roadblock,
which is undeniably an intrusion on a person's right to travel freely,
police must have a legitimate suspicion of alcohol or substance abuse
before they can require a test. Now, industry representatives are proposing
to test employees who may show no suspicious indications.

This is something Albertans need to talk about. A good basis for the
discussion would be the report of the safety-council working group, in
which the oilpatch lays out its consensus. The government should release it
without further ado and, in any case, before proceeding to regulation.