Chemical Case Study Summary: Critical Issues At Standard Chemical

Summary
Standard Chemical is a company that processes volatile toxic chemicals that are sold for commercial use. The HR manager, Jacobson, attended a drug and alcohol abuse seminar and realized that the company did not have a policy. Safety is a critical issue at Standard Chemical because of the potential environmental hazards; therefore, the HR manager thought it would be smart to implement a drug and alcohol abuse policy. To make sure the managers do not abuse this new policy to get rid of unnecessary employees, Jacobson assured the other top managers that this program would have checks and balances and would emphasize rehabilitation, and not termination. The program and a brochure was presented to employees during a series of group meetings
The policy indicates that an employee can be suspended if a suspicion of drug use occurs. The employee can either refuse a drug test and be terminated, take the drug test and pass and get pay back for suspension or fail and take the company’s EAP program, or just skip the drug test and enroll directly in the EAP. An employee, Carpenter, was recently suspended because he drove a forklift into a crack and the outer steel wall. This caused Jacobson to suspend him because this accident was enough evidence for reasonable suspicion of drug use. Carpenter agreed to go directly to the EAP program where, at first, did not want to release his drug results to the company. After finally releasing the results, he kept his appointments and was doing better at work but failed his drug test with the EAP. The EAP called the plant nurse, and she said it takes about 35-45 days for marijuana to get out of someone's system. So on May 17, they test him again and it was positive so the company fired him. The union recommended they let him take another test, in which Standard approved, and the results came back negative, and then on June 21 and July 12, they tested him again and the results were again
Following this new policy, a security guard told Jacobson that an employee drove a forklift into the crack between the concrete floor and steel wall. When Jacobson asked other employees, some say it was that “pothead” Carpenter. Because of the evidence and finally figuring it out that it was Carpenter who was driving, that was enough evidence for reasonable suspicion of drug use. Therefore, Jacobson suspended Carpenter. After deciding on going to the EAP, he fails his drug test the first two times, and then the union representative insisted on give Carpenter one more drug test in which he passed the next three.
Section 2: Causes of the Problem
The causes of the problem is that Standard Chemical implemented a new drug and alcohol abuse policy. Carpenter ran a forklift into the way which made Jacobson have reasonable suspicion that he could be on drugs. After following the policy, Carpenter was suspended and decided to go through with the EAP. Carpenter failed his first two drug test with the EAP. The cause of this problem is that cannabinoids stay in the system for 35-45 days. So, it was hard to specifically determine if the EAP was working.
Section 3: Alternative