DRUG TESTING HITS CONSTRUCTION

As a machine operator for Knappett Industries Ltd., Ben Ladouceur's
safety depends on staying alert and following company safety protocols.

He said working on a job site with someone who is intoxicated by drugs
or alcohol could easily mean serious injury or loss of life - his own
or someone else's.

"I could kill them because they're in the wrong place at the wrong
time," said Ladouceur.

An agreement between B.C.'s unionized construction workers and their
employers has created a new industry-wide policy requiring workers who
have workplace accidents or near misses to undergo mandatory drug and
alcohol testing.

Workers could also be tested if there is a reasonable suspicion of
impairment. The program tests for alcohol and nine other drugs.

Jeff Martin, a site supervisor at Knappett Industries, said while the
company is non-union so the new policy does not apply, he supports it
as long as the test is only designed to pick up on-site impairment.

"I'm not prejudicial to people, what they do on their time off," he
said. "It could be a biased system."

Bruce Margetts, president of Nanaimo's Crane Force Ltd., said industry
employers have been fighting for a drug testing policy for years. His
company has its own drug testing policy.

"Being in the crane business, the liabilities are absolutely
staggering," he said. "We're 100 per cent behind it and so is the
insurance industry. I think it's made, in our case, the operators more
attentive."

Margetts said there are already many job sites where his workers are
required to give a urine sample, while oil and mining operations in
Alberta have tested workers for some time.

"Pretty soon you'll see everyone do it - either that or you won't get
insurance," he said.

Micheal Vonn, policy director with the B.C. Civil Liberties
Association, said her organization has concerns about the tests.

"It's not clear that the tests effectively determine active
impairment," she said, adding the testing could lead to employers
accessing medical information they have no right to access.

"The safety justification, in our view, is incredibly problematic when
it comes to pre-employment screening," said Vonn. "We would expect
that there will be numerous individual challenges. When you have a
program of this magnitude, there is the potential that it could bleed
into other sectors."

Clyde Scollan, president of the Construction Labour Relations
Association, said if a worker tests positive for marijuana, which can
remain in the system for weeks after use, a second test is conducted
that narrows active impairment down to a matter of hours.

He said unionized contractors and the 14 building trades worked on the
policy since the last round of bargaining and it applies to everyone
on the job site, including managers and administrative staff.

"The employer has an obligation legally to provide a safe work site,"
he said. "It took us the last year and a bit to come up with a
document everyone was happy with."

Scollan said the agreement only applies to the 350 members in his
association. There are thousands of companies provincewide that employ
non-unionized workers.

While concerns have been expressed about invasion of worker privacy,
Scollan said both parties - the employers and the unions - agreed to
the policy.

Employees identified as suffering from drug or alcohol addiction are
sent to a substance abuse expert for help.

"If there's addiction, there's an obligation to accommodate," he
said.

The CLRA is in the process of setting up a third party administrator
for the policy and identifying medical officials to do the testing.