I hope you never end up having to make that choice. Our employees did, and every one of them decided that a drug test was worth it. And I think they’d fight pretty hard to keep those raises, which added up to 25% over two years.
Businesses have to make tough choices all the time, and some choices are the difference between staying in business and going under, or between giving raises or losing benefits. Our employees voted with their feet and stayed.
Since the government is pushing these policies, I would expect more and more employers to start instituting them. Like I said, we’re in manufacturing, so we got hit harder with increases (and the bungling of the BWC) than white collar employers. And our workplace is a million times more dangerous. There is no place for anyone here to be under the influence of mind altering drugs, since a mistake could kill someone. But even in workplaces where that’s simply not the case, I expect more drug tests rather than fewer. It’s too much money. There’s too much at stake. And most employees would rather have a raise, or a job, than not.
Fine. You make your choices, and I’ll make mine. As I said, it’s somewhat understandable (but personally unacceptable to me) if human life and safety are on the line. But it’s still deeply loathesome and abhorrent, whether or not the government mandates it. Hell, it’s MORE abhorrent because the governmet mandates it.
I’m not asking to be an exception to the rule. To the extent that I’m asking for anything, it’s for the rule to be eliminated for everybody.
I’m sure you could save money on your health insurance premiums too by firing all your smokers and doing health background checks into your potential hires, and avoiding those with a history of getting sick. How would your employees feel about that? How would you feel about that?
Yes, what’s your point? That’s why I ask for a salary, too.
However, it bears reiteration that I still believe the drug-test policy is lose-lose. Potential employees either lose a little bit of privacy or dignity, or the job, and the company loses employees they would otherwise want to hire.
In one of my old jobs it could be critical. One of my coworkers was a pothead, which is legal, but so is drinking alcohol and both are forbidden while you’re in a chemical factory. Yeah, chemistry - that line of job where bad spelling kills. This guy only worked weekends, so the bosses usually never saw him. We had to warn him a few times to lay off the pot while he was handling explosives: some of us are kind of attached to our hides :smack:
But we didn’t get tested for drugs, not even in our yearly checkup (which would have been confidential anyway).