I’d wager that at least half of the jobs requiring pre-employment drug tests today don’t offer health insurance.
There could be other factors.
Wikipedia:
I haven’t found reliable cites for how common drug testing really is in the US, or even if it is becoming more or less so. Annoyingly, I found articles that claim companies that screen employees are both more and less productive.
I think this line of argument misses the point, though. I don’t see it as a productivity issue or a drug issue. I see it as a privacy issue.
Heh, thanks, that’s actually just what I was going to reply to Gorsnak.
I guess my point is: I (personally) feel that way requiring drug tests, so I would enact similar legislation. In the countries where I’ve worked in Europe I’ve never heard of companies requiring drug tests (I’m sure they’re around, it’s just not terribly common to my knowledge) and I have a feeling that “a similar aversion” to drug tests in the workplace might exist. I don’t know what the actual legislation is, though.
I think, Why Not, that most of them offer insurance, they just offer it at a cost that would cripple an individual who was trying to provide the daily necessities to his/her family. The problem I have with the entire concept of random drug testing is that I could be punished for activities I engaged in while neither at work, nor representing the company for which I worked. “For cause” drug testing , I have little to no problem with. If someone drops a girder or truss on my head, then by all means, drug test them. Give them a breathalyzer while your at it. I’m not agreeing that the bottom line is an acceptable excuse for the management to exercise its control beyond the realm of the workplace.
For the Netherlands, I found a cite saying:
“Drug use in the Netherlands is considered a private matter. […] A Dutch employer can therefore not simply require a drug test.”
This is of course regarding illegal drugs, but also being drunk at work. There are circumstances where an employer can require it. I have found specific cases where it has been contested in court and the employer won. One of them was on board a ship though, where “private” is perhaps somewhat different anyway.
From what I can find it seems easier for employers in the UK, but like I said, I’d never heard of it happening.
Just thought I’d add it for comparison…
Bah the Helen Hunt analogy is terrible. You can feed your family without nailing Helen Hunt, though it is a difficult life.
However the vast majority of jobs that pay living wage demand drug tests or starve. In America Conservatives have us whoring ourselves out to corporations just to eat. The government demand your piss, or Facebook login without warrant would be a travesty, but apparently companies using your livelihood to coerce you into giving up these things is okay.
Sod that. America: land of the wage slaves.
Really? You think so? I’m thinking that more blue collar and retail jobs require drug testing than white collar professional jobs do. Does the fry guy at McDonald’s have medical?
Hell, I don’t have medical and I’m a freakin’ RN during a supposed “nursing shortage”.
Burger flippers have to take drug tests. When I was Admin Assistant for a pizza place, one of my duties was to schedule drug tests for pizza makers. I didn’t have to take drug tests because I was “management”. The main reason I work for the government now is the no pee-test thing. I didn’t even bother to apply for civilian sector jobs because of the drug testing.
When I started work at one large company, I wasn’t asked to pee in a cup. Not a condition of employment. However, we were told that, depending on what contracts we ended up working on, those companies we contracted to might require that we pee in a cup or get a background check or a financial background check, or even fingerprinted.
I asked what happens if I fail the pee check, and he said I wouldn’t be able to work on that account and they’d find some other account for me to work on. The company’s take on it is that somebody who’s going to show up at work and fail a pee check is going to fail in other, more auditable, less actionable ways.
Interestingly enough, most of the contracts I worked on that required a drug test were governmental.
Maybe it’s state or city government. US Federal government employees apparently are still tested under one of Reagan’s Executive Orders.
First off, you got your culture wars bullshit. Drug testing is about pot. Pretty much all there is to it. Heroin addicts don’t put in a lot of job applications, their schedule doesn’t permit it. Cocaine users are already spending a buttload of money every day, by whatever means, but they ain’t getting it working in the mail room.
Given the conditions under which these tests are applied, anyone who can’t figure out how to a get a clean sample into the right jar isn’t smart enough to smoke pot, its a waste of perfectly good weed. I’ve done it at least half a dozen times, and believe me, I ain’t James Bond.
Its a shuck, and a cash cow for the people who own the companies that do the testing. Like the Governor of Florida, signing the law to test all the welfare recipients. Oh, wait, no, its his wife that owns the stock in the company that the State of Florida is giving all that money to. Very different.
Trying to keep pot users from being employed is just plain silly. Its not even an outrage, its too silly for that. One time in a thousand, maybe, they stop a smack junkie from getting a job he wouldn’t show up for anyway. Alcoholics get a pass, pot heads get an IQ test. The pee labs get paid. And that’s all that happens.
Employers could save massive amounts of money by disqualifying employees who are overweight. In fact they should disqualify anyone who has had a heart attack, anyone who has diabetes. Or disqualify anyone who eats at McDonalds.
Here in Massachusetts, marijuana is decriminalized, basically equivalent to a parking ticket. There is a lot of evidence to say that smoking cigarettes is a bigger health risk than smoking marijuana. If this is about saving money on insurance, why don’t these places test for tobacco use?
.
There are companies that do: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6870458/ns/health-addictions/t/fired-smoking/
I think that’s kind of the point, it boils down to choice. As it’s been said before, companies are free to ask potential employees to jump through hoops and employees are free to tell them to take a walk.
I myself have had to take drug tests, IQ tests, personality tests, submit to background checks and provide credit reports to employers.
Sometimes it’s not a choice people want to make, but it’s still a choice.
I think there are 20 states currently planning or passing similar legislation. Are all of their governors also married to stock owners in drug testing concerns?
I’m not a fan of the idea, but my objections arise from the fact that it will likely cost more money than it would save.
I might be persuaded to reconsider my opposition if the bills were amended to also require each member of the state legislature in question, and the governor and lieutenant governor, to take and pass the same test. Not because I expect mass failures, but because they seem to think it’s a legitimate condition of getting government money… and since they’re also recipients of government money, I wonder if that might change their minds about about it feels to pee in a cup before you can pay the rent that month.
There has to be some limit on what hoops they can make you jump through. What if an employer wants to know who you’ve slept with? What if they want to search your house? Read your personal email? Record your personal calls?
I realize this is a slippery slope argument, but you are saying that businesses have a right to require anything of a perspective employee.
If something is legal, an employer shouldn’t have a right to dictate you don’t it, as long as it’s on personal time. My right to privacy should extend to what is in my urine.
I really don’t see how an employer’s desire not to hire people who routinely engage in illegal activity is an attack on “freedom”, since my understanding was always that freedom does not entail a right to break the law.
As someone who used to manage a burger place, I was happy when the higher-ups decided to start doing drug-testing - i’d worked in a place before where several employees (including the manager!) were users of various substances, and it reflected in the work environment, the store’s margins, and the quality of the product we produced.
I like that idea but, as you know, it ain’t ever going to happen. What might be passable is that everyone else who receives money from the government has to take the test. The farmer who takes subsidies - he might be smoking pot! That university asking for a research grant - how do we know they aren’t crackheads or even a meth lab?
If we are willing to spend the money to drug test welfare recipients over the few hundred dollars they get in a month then it is critical that we test those receiving millions and billions of dollars. I, for one, would like to be assured that none of my tax dollars are being used to buy cocaine for corporate executives. If that involves them having to piss into a cup once a month while someone watches, that’s a sacrifice they should be willing to make to continue getting tax dollars.
I think the limit is what the general public will tolerate. Most people will tolerate a drug test, but if enough people balk and refuse the company won’t be able to hire enough staff and will have to change their policy.
I don’t particularly like taking drug tests (or other tests I have had to take), but I won’t let that stand in my way of a good job offer. If they ask to search my house? Then I’ll tell them to shove it.
People don’t get hired, or even fired, all the time for personal choices like smoking cigarettes (see above post/cite). I know people that have lost out on opportunities because of tattoos, piercings, clothing choices or odd mannerisms. Why should refusing a drug test be any different?
There’s this case too: Bud distributor worker fired for drinking Coors - This guy just drank the wrong brand of beer.
How far is OK with you? This has been asked a few times now of those who argue that breaking the law in an way that may be completely unrelated to your work should exclude you from that job, but no answers other than to point out that it’s a slippery slope. I suppose it is, but I’d like to know how far down the slope drug test supporters think is OK.
The following are all for a generic job in an office. Assume a zero tolerance policy, please. I’m not really expecting a reply from Smapti here, I think his or her post was of the two cent variety.
Would it be OK for the employer to require employees to install software on their home computer that reported the employee’s browsing history in order identify those who violate copyright laws or access illegal child pornography?
Would it be OK for the employer to require employees to install a speed monitor and GPS on their personal vehicles to ensure that speed laws are never broken?
Would it be OK for the employer to require employees to wear an ankle monitor at all times to ensure that if an employee is on the scene of a reported crime that they will be identified?
Would it be OK for the employer to hire private detectives to randomly search the homes of employees in order to ensure that employees do not possess illegal weapons or harboring terrorists?
If any one of the above was found to have a positive effect on productivity, would you support widespread adoption of the practice? How about if one was proven to slightly reduce crime rates? Are there any scenarios that would never be acceptable?