"Companies across the United States have started including some prescription drugs in random employee drug tests, and firing workers who test positive.
For example, Sue Bates lost her job of 22 years as an assembly line worker at Dura Automotive Systems after she tested positive for hyrdrocodone, a drug she had been legally prescribed.
Dura and other employers claim that many medications may hamper a worker’s job performance and even affect job safety. Yet many workers’ advocates object to such summary punishment for taking legal medication."
While I am with employers on this one (at least I do not see them violating any “rights”), I wonder - how do they get away with this? The unions should be screaming.
It doesn’t seem like the smartest business decision (when not taking into account insurance premiums, as cporter pointed out). What if someone takes their medication after work, thus not affecting their productivity?
Some medication can greatly hamper productivity. Hydrocodone is an opiate. Think: opium, heroin. If someone tested positive for heroin, most people wouldn’t be against that worker getting fired, “because it ruins productivity.” But many prescription medicines like hydrocodone and oxycodone can be just as addicting and intoxicating, if not more.
I am sorry but what? The employer can’t do this. Just because somebody works for them doesn’t mean they own them. You don’t need drug tests for productivity. You check their productivity , whatever the hell that is.
This is a violation of employee’s privacy which he has despite the vapid claims of private property that I am going to be bombarded with. Why not a urine test? Masterbation test?
Might I suggest the radical idea of employee rights?
Might I suggest the radical idea of employers’ rights?
What you’re suggesting here is that an employee has a right to work for whomever he chooses, regardless of whether or not that employer wants that employee to work for him. It’s no different than suggesting that I have to perform services for whomever has the money to pay for them, regardless of whether or not I want to provide the services to them. Forcible association. Not something I could endorse.
Agreed. The employer can demand all he wants, but I am only obligated to comply with his demands if I wish to remain employed by this employer. There is always the option of finding other employment. And even if it were written into an employment contract, the only reasonable liability I should face for failure to comply is termination of the contract (i.e. termination of employment by that employer), not forcible compliance.
Were these people forced to comply? I don’t think they were… but I could be wrong.
Medications can cause harm. If your job is to drive a forklift, and the drug says can’t operate heavy machinery, the person can get hurt or hurt someone else.
Assembly line errors due to medication need to be addressed. Some fat cat does not wake up one day and say lets fire people for taking medication. There were probably time studies, different statistics used to justify it.
You’ve got it the wrong way around. Only because you work for somebody doesn’t mean that you own them. The employer is employing you; the employer is paying you money in exchange for your labor. If the employer wants to only employ completely drug-free workers, then it is his right to do so (after all, it is his money, not yours). If you don’t like that, then you can walk away from the job.
What you’re suggesting isn’t “employee rights,” but institutionalized theft.
I was anticipating a reply like this. Unreasonable search and seizures. Remember the 4th amendment? As an employee I give my time and labour for money. What I do with my body or any other parts is off limits to my employer. Its a simple arrangement. You can’t tell me to go thorugh such invasive measures just becuause I have entered in a money for time/labor contract. Tyranny is tyranny whether private or public.
you are basically suggesting that by employing me the employer effectively owns my body and privacy.
It may be his money and I may be working for him but he can’t put unusual requests on me. There is no right to unreasonable search and seizure of your labor.
Unreasonable search and seizure of your labor? What does that even mean? Also, you’re not going to convince a lot of people here or anything by appealing to the US constitution as some determinate of right and wrong.
Nobody is suggesting that the employer owns you. If they owned you they could force you to go do drug testing, or stand on your head, or whatever they wanted whenever they wanted. They didn’t do that, they simply said “we only employ people who aren’t on these drugs. If you want to work for us, please prove you aren’t on these drugs.”
Being asked to do something in order to continue working with someone is not the same thing as your employer literally tying you down and forcing you to do something. You seem to be burdened by the idea that an employer has a duty to employ whoever wants a job no matter what. There’s no other explanation for your argument that I can see.
You12 -what you seem to be saying is that if I have 2 potential employees, and one is drunk and smells of alcohol, and one is completely sober- I have no right to judge them until I see their work?
Not just because you have “a contract” - only if you signed a contract containing terms to the effect that your employer can, first of all, test you for drugs and secondly fire you if the test comes back postive.
It’s true that a contract of employment is purely voluntary for both parties, but the actual voluntary decision-making happens when you draft the contract and not from day to day as you go along, except for the most casual of part-time jobs. I agree that an employer doesn’t own you, nor can he demand performances of you for which you did not contract. If you did contract, however, it would do no dignity to either party’s freedom of will to disrespect their intention to formally contract and be bound thereby.
No, I am not. You do not have a right to be employed by anyone. The employer can employ you on any conditions he wants. If you do not like those conditions, then you are not obligated to take the job. If you find the conditions that the employer requires for your employment to be “unusual requests” and “invasive measures,” then you have every right to turn the job down or not seek it at all.
And you are absolutely right that “tyranny is tyranny whether private or public.” What you’re suggesting is tyranny - the tyranny of the worker over the employer.
According to the news there never was any drug test as part of the contract. That is the information we are dealing with. A woman was fired abruptly after 22 years becuase she took prescribed drugs.
Now i got no problem with the firing but with the random drug tests?
Sounds to me like employers are engaging in random drug tests for the sake of it without expicitly mentioning in their contract like most sports contracts.
Let me turn the scenario around say that if an employee after a few years of working demands that i pay for his car. something that is new and not part of the contract. Should I give it to him? Is it his right to demand an non contractual item?
If not then why? Should the employees go for drug tests that are out of the blue. Just like an employer that will not settle for an out of the blue non -contractual demand of the employee.
To say that an employer has a right to do something that was never part of a contract is objectionable. And ofcourse my sympathies lie with the workers because by and large workers ususally get the short end of the stick. But thats a secondary consideration here.
It is up to you to decide. Alternatively, you can just terminate the contract (as a rare contract forbids its termination).
Is it his right to demand an non contractual item?
No, though he may ask, politely
If not then why?
As you said, it was not agreed for.
Should the employees go for drug tests that are out of the blue.
Again, that’s for them to decide. Alternatively, they can just terminate the contract.
And ofcourse my sympathies lie with the workers because by and large workers ususally get the short end of the stick.
To me, the situation is really symmetrical - either you agree to a new request from your partner in contract, or you terminate your cooperation. Which end is any shorter?
One party can always make a non-contractual demand. The other party would never be held to it in court, though, so you’re welcome to tell them to shove off. The employees could simply say no to random drug tests, but then the employer could terminate their existing contract.
They didn’t have to be drug tested. They just had to be drug tested if they wanted to continue working for that employer.
If they wanted to not be drug tested and not be able to terminate their employment contract based on drug testing, they should have put that in the contract. Of course, most employers wouldn’t agree to such terms in the first place but they certainly could if they wanted to.
It doesn’t matter if these drug tests are non-contractual. The employers still have a right to give them and the employees still have a right to refuse them (and leave their job). There could be a contractual problem only if the employees are salaried workers who have a contract with the employer for a period of time (e.g. a year).
Once upon a time, the bar/restaurant I worked at decided that beards on employees would no longer be acceptable - everyone with a soupcatcher had 7 days to begin appearing clean-shaven on the job. The owner was totally flabbergasted when he lost his day manager and his night assistant manager over the policy - he couldn’t believe that we’d quit working over such a minor requirement.
I was given to understand that I could have caused him loads of legal grief - the Minnesota Department of Labor has lots of muscle (it’s a very pro-union state), and not nearly enough to do.
Myself, I didn’t bother about it - kept eating there, too. The food was good, and I figured he’d had a right to re-negotiate my verbal employment contract whenever he wanted to.
Firing someone without warning strikes me as excessive, but then, so do a lot of things. I prefer to remain self-employed, and will never hire an employee because of local laws - any “you may not fire an employee for …” or “you must not decline to hire an employee for …” law gives me the queasies.
Though I was known to hire drug users, back when I worked in that industry. We had one cook who was almost constantly high - and the fastest, best cook we had. The owner fired him, of course - and his kitchen suffered for it. IMO, any employer who puts anything ahead of job performance is cheating themselves - but anyone is free to do exactly that, if they wish.
