OPINION - THE REGISTER'S READERS SAY

DRUG TESTING: DO WE PRIZE LIBERTY?

Gov.Terry Branstad claimed that Iowa has "a very weak [employee drug
testing] law" (Register, Jan 9). He's entitled to his opinion. On the
other hand, our present law does a superior job of protecting innocent
workers from abuse while fully authorizing employers to take action against
employees suspected of drug involvement.

How can the governor make his claim without comparing Iowa's law to that of
other states? Iowa is one of only 17 states that regulate private-sector
drug testing by statute. Several other states offer private-sector
employees some protection against random testing in their state
constitutions or through wrongful-discharge tort law. Neither avenue of
relief is available in Iowa. Moreover, many states without a drug-testing
statute often have statutory language that permits union shops. Workers in
those states can be protected more easily through union contracts.

More than half of those states with statutory language, Iowa included,
require employers to have reasonable or probable cause to believe that
employees are using drugs on the job before imposing drug tests.

Eleven of the 17 states bar or place restrictions on random drug testing by
employers. In other states without constitutional, statutory or contractual
language, employees lack protection in areas of confidentiality,
confirmation testing, undue harassment, possible defamation, excessive
discipline and other taken for-granted liberties.

Our state motto is: Our liberties we prize, and our rights we will
maintain." It perplexes me to comprehend that some politicians (often the
same ones who live by the motto, "Get government out of our lives") are so
willing to mandate an invasion into our private lives by those we barely
know.

The late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall stated in U.S. vs.
Salerno that "society's belief, reinforced over the centuries, that all are
innocent until [proven guilty], like the companion principle that guilt must
be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, is implicit in the concept of ordered
liberty and is established beyond legislative contravention.

What Governor Branstad and his business cronies are seeking is nothing more
than special rights of totalitarian control for employers, bypassing the
constitutional right to be free from arbitrary and discriminatoty searches
and treatment.

Iowa's current law strikes a strong balance between employers' right to test
their employees and the employees' right to be free from intrusion and
harassment.

Marty Ryan,
legislative coordinator,
Iowa Civil Liberties Union
446 Insurance Exchange Bldg.,
Des Moines.