Drug Testing Should NOT Be Mandatory In The Workplace

Instead of testing for what really matters - impairment, drug testing looks for the presence of drug metabolites in the employee's urine, which remain in the body for up to two months. It should fall on management to maintain a trusting a positive work environment where such actions do not need to be taken. The mandation of drug testing violates rights telling employees what they can and cannot do on their own time, in their own homes. Drug testing should not be mandatory in the workplace for it invades employees private lives for irrelevant results.

An experienced manager should know how to maintain a safe and effective work environment without demoralizing employees subjecting them with testing procedures. Testing alienates the vast majority of good employees, who resent being subjected to a strip search to keep their jobs. For instance, one can screen out probable drug users by pursuing in depth interviews with different interviewers, checking references thoroughly and contacting a candidate's previous supervisors. Contacting previous employers can inform a hiring manager of chronic absenteeism, inconsistent quality, and bad work habits at their former jobs (Maltby, 2001). By doing this
one can be sure they are hiring effective workers and lower chances of hiring drug users in the first place. Drug testing is an unnecessary act of distrust by management violating rights of legitimate employees.

Testing requires the majority of employees to prove their innocence when there is no reason to suspect they have done anything wrong. In the workplace employees are expected to show up on time and do their job with no controversy. However, demanding drug tests from every employee is an invasion of privacy. An employee should not be punished or lose one's job for something that may or may not have been done two weeks ago in their own home. Drug testing is a humiliating process that gives an employer the power to tell employees what can and cannot be done during their private lives. John Basbas tells of a women worker at ACLU with her experience:
I waited for her to turn her back before pulling down my pants, but she told me she had to watch everything I did. I pulled down my pants, put the container in place - as she bent down to watch -gave her a sample and even then she did not look away... I am a forty-year-old mother of three, and nothing I have ever done in my life equals or deserves the humiliation, degradation and mortification I felt (Clark, 1999, para 1). This degrading process is unnecessary and discounts a perhaps just as serious issue.

A reasonable program for dealing with the hazards posed by impaired workers would confront the most serious problem - alcohol abuse. Yet no proposes have been made that all employees be subjected to a breathalyzer test to keep their jobs (Koch, 1998, p. 12). Large federal surveys show that 24% of workers report drinking during the workday at least once in the past year. (Wilcox, 2015, p. 3). Employees that may have alcohol dependence can show in the workplace by preoccupation with obtaining and using substances while at work, inferring with concentration and attention to their job. Impairment testing of workers in safety-sensitive positions is utilized by a small number of employers. These tests measure an employee's vision, reflexes and coordination and compare the results to the employee’s baseline to determine whether he or she is capable of performing the job safely. The effectiveness of impairment testing has not been subjected to rigorous research, but evidence suggests that it can be useful in spotting problems and allowing supervisors to remove workers from duty if their performance is impaired, whether because of drug use, fatigue or any other problem (Willis, 1999, p. 2). Drug testing bypasses the easiest and more common issue of employees abusing substances at work. Being that alcoholism may even pose a more serious matter, drug testing is commonly found to be inaccurate and an expensive endeavor. There is concern of spending not-insignificant amounts of money to pinpoint a miniscule portion of the working population. Drug tests for a every employee in a company are ridiculously expensive and have been found to be commonly inaccurate. According to Maltby the most common type of testing, immunoassay is found to be about 82% accurate and “clean" samples are mistakenly labeled as "dirty" 20% to 30% of the time (Maltby, 2001, para 3). Inaccurate testing can lead to laying off innocent and valuable employees all to identify a small amount of potential users. Even the most commonly used techniques still yield false positive results on a regular basis. This means that model employees who have never touched an illegal substance in their lives may lose jobs or promotions based entirely on erroneous information (Willis, 1999, p.4). If fired for a positive drug test, an employee usually cannot collect unemployment insurance. And employees who are injured on the job and test positive after the accident will probably be fired and become ineligible for health benefits, workers’ compensation or unemployment insurance (Koch, 1999, p.7). Firing good, sober employees for something they might have done last Saturday night does not increase safety. Therefore, the testing procedures seek more disadvantages than aids to a work environment, costing money and causing a distrust between management and workers.
Courts have consistently held that random drug testing of public employees threatens the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable searches.
Drug testing may take place only in those rare instances when a special societal need outweighs the employee’s privacy interest (Willis, 1999, p. 5). The Fourth Amendment states that “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, but upon probable cause.” This is unreasonable search and seizure, breaching the 4th amendment protections against such abuse. This treats people like they are guilty until proven innocent, reversing the presumption of innocence which is the basis of our democratic society (Norris, n.d., para
6).

Drug testing should not be obligatory in the workplace as it invades the privacy of innocent employees and resulting in commonly inaccurate outcomes. Mandatory testing leaves employees feeling vulnerable and violated in an environment they should feel trusted. Considering there are other ways to screen out drug abusers in the workplace. In addition, testing has been found to deliver frequent false results in some cases leaving innocent employees jobless. Drug testing has nothing to do with impairment and everything to do with discrimination and is a violation of human rights.