DRUG-TESTING IS ABUSE

Union Right To Resist This Error-Prone Practice

Three cheers to the International Longshoremen's Union for defying
Exxon-Mobil's attempt to force random drug-testing on workers at the
Halifax waterfront.

Random mandatory drug-testing of employees and new hires is one of
those seductive ideas that sounds attractive - until it's subjected
to a modicum of scrutiny and thought.

Employers certainly have a right to expect workers won't be drunk or
stoned on the job. But that shouldn't entitle them to put employees
through procedures that are humiliating, intrusive, inaccurate,
unrelated to job performance and contrary to fundamental notions of
fair play.

Humiliating, intrusive, inaccurate, unrelated to job performance, and
contrary to fair play? Let's take them one at a time.

That the commonest forms of drug-testing are intrusive is beyond
serious dispute. Subjects typically have to urinate into a container
and, to ensure accuracy, must do so while being closely observed.

Imagine dropping your drawers, baring your genitals and peeing into a
cup while a supervisor looks on, and you'll have some sense of the
humiliating reality masked by the clinical phrase, drug-testing.

Sample collection is only the beginning of the invasion of privacy,
which can continue in the lab where samples are tested. Workers have
no guarantee testing will stop with illicit drugs and alcohol.
Samples can reveal a variety of medical conditions, and even genetic
predisposition to various illnesses. Employers have been known to
test female workers for pregnancy.

Most companies probably wouldn't do that, but why should an employee
have to reply on the good intentions of a boss who collects bodily
samples coercively, on threat of dismissal? Drug-testing is
notoriously inaccurate. A variety of legitimate medications can be
mistaken for illicit ones. Depronil, a drug used to treat Parkinson's
disease, can show up as amphetamine in drug-testing. Ibuprofen, the
common, over-the-counter anti-inflammatory and pain killer, is often
mistaken for marijuana. Poppy seeds in cookies and cakes can produce
positive results for heroin.

By conservative estimates, standard tests produce false positive
results five per cent of the time. If a million Canadians were
tested, that means 50,000 could be fired, or not hired, because of a
mistake.

Even if a test produces an accurate result, it doesn't necessarily
provide any work-related information. A positive test for marijuana,
for example, doesn't indicate impairment, only that the person tested
has inhaled or ingested marijuana sometime in the last few weeks or
months.

Such testing has nothing to do with on-the-job sobriety or alertness.
It's an unwarranted attempt to detect and punish private conduct
undertaken outside work hours and off the job site. Of course, it's
crucial for employees to be sober and alert while performing certain
kinds of tasks, but where is the evidence of widespread abuse? What
proof is there that drug-testing will provide reliable evidence?

If alertness and sobriety are the goal, as opposed to punishing
off-the-job conduct, employers can test for those qualities. Various
computer programs can evaluate an employee's hand-eye co-ordination
and response time to help an employer check job fitness.

Ironically, companies using one such program, Factor 2000, discovered
that fatigue and illness, not substance abuse, are the most common
reasons for failure. When drug abuse is a problem, employee
assistance programs that provide counselling and medical help are
more effective than random testing.

In a free society, citizens aren't required to prove their innocence,
especially without any evidence of wrongdoing. To randomly subject
employees, on pain of dismissal, to error-prone tests requiring
humiliating invasions of privacy, with no assurance of accuracy, is
abusive.

The longshoremen's union is right to resist, and the province would
be wise to outlaw the practice once and for all.