Drug testing

[squire]

Air NZ Staff Worried By Tests
08/10/2003 04:43 PM


The Employment Court in Auckland has been told Air New Zealand employees are anxious about a proposed drug and alcohol testing policy.

The airline's proposal is being legally challenged by six unions acting on behalf of the airline's staff.

In the second day of the hearing Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union national secretary Andrew Little has given his evidence.

He says he has received a large amount of correspondence from concerned Air New Zealand workers about the proposed random drug testing programme.

Mr Little says the introduction of the regime would negatively affect staff morale and productivity.

He says random drug testing in the workplace is 'insidious and an inaccurate regime for health and safety risk management'.

Mr Little says random drug testing fails to minimise any risks or hazards to the workplace and creates a climate of fear amongst workers.

The hearing is continuing in Auckland.


:oh:

[Torres]

If you're "clean", why fear? :confused:

[prospector]

Because its random, some may be fearful they will miss out.
To me Mr little appears to have said little of any value.

Prospector

[High Altitude]

:confused: :confused: :confused: Exactly if there aint nothing to hide then???

[Xplicit]

This area has always been grey for me...

Let me see if I have this straight... You can have a drug screening prior to employment with a company, but they can not randomly drug test you whilst employed by them, unless they have it as a company policy, right? So, do the staff have to sign for this or is it just immediately implimented and understood that everyone will take the test when asked?

I'm only a PPL so it doesnt affect me, but just out of curiosity...

[Pharcarnell]

Many non-prescription remedies for common, everyday ailments contain compounds banned by various organisations, ie sports, etc.
IF one of these compounds was detected by a random drug test, for any reason at all, legitimate or otherwise, an unscrupulous employer could use it as an excuse to terminate you, and/or add a note to your employment record guaranteeing a hard time for all future employment prospects.
Who needs to give these A*****les any ammunition to fire back at you.
Paranoid??? maybe. Realist, more than likely.

[Torres]

In most drug testing regimes, from RBT to drugs in sport, a second closer tollerance test is required and an avenue of appeal is always available.

I would imagine it would be a careless employer that tried to introduce random drug testing without having secondary, more accurate testing device and an appeal procedure.

[compressor stall]

As one who has failed two drug tests at non aviation work (one for amphetamines, the other for cocaine) and never have taken either drug I have seen and felt the inaccuracies in the procedure.

Torres I grant you point re the right of appeal, but the potential to use the first failure over an employee is great. Let alone the anguish! Did not bother me too much at the time as it was not my career at stake, but the stress if it was would have been extreme.

[fruitloop]

DRUG TESTING !!
Ok,but only give me the good stuff.........Oops !!

[squire]

Air NZ drug tests 'dubious'

09.10.2003
By MATHEW DEARNALEY
Air New Zealand's workforce drug-testing plans were yesterday attacked by a former medical chief at the airline.

Dr David Black, one of the airline's two chief medical officers until 1997, told the Employment Court yesterday that the drug-testing lacked proper safeguards.

He acknowledged there may be a case for testing transport workers in "safety critical" tasks.

He also accepted under cross-examination that these workers could include aircraft engineers and that the alternative may put co-workers and airline passengers at risk, despite his strong reservations about the reliability of information from urine samples.

But Dr Black, who now lectures on and practices occupational medicine, said testing other workers on health and safety grounds as a surrogate for direct assessments by supervisors of impaired performance was far more dubious.

It would jeopardise a hard-earned climate of trust and respect between managers and staff at the airline.

It implied mistrust between employer and employee, and was "a most unhealthy basis for a relationship in an organisation in which safety is paramount".

Dr Black was also scathing of plans to refer test results to human-resources staff not bound by a medical code of ethics.

His concern extended to a lack of medical privilege covering a consent form in which staff selected randomly for urine tests for five classes of drugs, or breath tests for alcohol, would be asked to disclose any medication they were taking.

The airline already conducts pre-employment testing but a proposal to extend these to its 10,000 existing staff is under challenge by six unions representing workers, including aircraft engineers and cabin crew, although not pilots.

Chief Judge Tom Goddard is hearing the case in Auckland with Judges Graeme Colgan and Barrie Travis.

Airline witnesses are due to start testifying today. The court will hear submissions in December from the Council of Trade Unions, Business NZ and the Privacy Commissioner about ground-breaking aspects of the case.

The five classes of target drugs include not only those which are illegal, but some which Dr Black said had legitimate medical uses, with or without prescriptions.

Many substances of potential concern, such as Prozac, would go undetected by the proposed screening.

Despite his reservations about drug tests as indicators of impaired performance, he agreed with Judge Travis that detecting illicit substances could have an operational "utility" in an industry that depended on the integrity of those working in it.

Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union secretary Andrew Little dismissed a suggestion by airline lawyer Richard Fardell, QC, that random testing would be an effective deterrent to illicit drug use, calling it a lottery which some workers would resist "in any circumstance, to their detriment".

He accused the airline of failing to comprehend the humiliation it would cause, and called it an "insidious and hopelessly inadequate" form of management which avoided dealing with impaired performance at the time of greatest risk.

[pullock]

I think that the problem with drug testing is also a civil rites issue.

The presumption of innosence goes right out the window with compulsory random drug testing, and that is bad for us all. It opens up the window for a whole raft of invasive medical procedures to become mandatory pre-requisites for getting a job.

I go to work to earn money, and if a condition on ones ability to earn money is that they should submit to random medical procedures on their body their employer, then it is a civil liberty traversty.

The fiction of the movie Gattaca is fast becoming reality, and what's worse is that it's happening in a way that we are being made to be slowly and progressively desensitised to the invasiveness. Imagine how you as you read this would have considered random drug testing or DNA screening in the 70's? It would have been an outrage then, but today it's not. The "if you have got nothing to hide" apathy is precisely what THEY love.

Big brother, more than just a boring TV show..................

[TheNightOwl]

I'm with you, pullock, if any employer suspects I've been using drugs, and am therefore unfit for my job, let him accuse me so that I may defend myself. The argument espoused by Torres is a disgraceful one - "if clean, why fear" - and reverses the onus of proof from the accuser to accused. When this argument is applied to any situation, we may be left with the possibility of no privacy rights at all, e.g. a police search of home or person, etc.

I'm intrigued as to the reason why pilots are excluded from testing, does anyone know the answer? Are they, as a group, considered to be above reproach, or is it merely that they could wreak havoc if the testing were to be extended to them? Surely, if safety of aircraft and passengers is one of the applied criteria, a pilot would have to be at the top of the heap for testing, after all, who else could kill all crew and pax in one fell swoop?

Who is to conduct the tests, and what qualifications do they possess? What about security and anonimity of the results, or is this another field where "if clean, why fear" would apply?

I hope ALL AirNZ staff, flight crew or ground, band together and ensure that this NEVER occurs or, if it does, that the ramifications are well understood by management before the plans are implemented.

A pox on all their houses!!

Kind regards,

TheNightOwl. :ok:

[CT7]

I'm not sure where you got the idea from that pilots are excluded from the testing.

[Wirraway]

NZPA

10 October 2003
By MARY JANE BOLAND

An Air New Zealand pilot flew a plane while under the influence of alcohol or drugs, its deputy chief executive has told the Employment Court.

Craig Sinclair said the airline had not been told of the problem till after the pilot finished flight duty. Air New Zealand refused further comment on the incident last night because the matter is before the courts.

But Mr Sinclair told the court that such incidents showed the need for a widespread drug and alcohol testing policy at the company.

Three flight crew had been fired in the past eight weeks for drinking on the job, he said. Air New Zealand had encountered other problems, including flight attendants and pilots who consumed alcohol or drugs while resting before duty which may have affected their performance.

Cannabis had been found in the possession of a flight attendant and one employee was caught selling cannabis to fellow workers at one of the airline's engineering bases.

Such incidents were "not an exhaustive" list of problems the company had encountered. The three employees recently dismissed for drinking on the job denied it but were still sacked, Mr Sinclair said.

His evidence was part of the third day of a landmark Employment Court case, which could have an impact on workers across New Zealand.

Six unions are fighting the airline's plan to introduce random drug and alcohol testing for all 10,000 employees. They want the court to impose a permanent injunction banning the policy from being implemented.

For the defence, Mr Sinclair said safety was a non-negotiable part of operating an airline. "The safety and security of Air New Zealand's customers, employees, others involved in the operation of Air New Zealand's business and of the business generally are over-riding and non-negotiable principles upon which Air New Zealand's business is founded."

While it was clear some parts of the business were more safety sensitive, such as aircraft maintenance, Mr Sinclair said problems in other areas could have catastrophic results. He cited one incident in which an employee had not paid an invoice, which resulted in the company not receiving up-to-date information about a changed flightpath overseas.

The airline may not have a second chance if a drug or alcohol problem was only detected after an incident or accident happened.

Asked by the plaintiffs' lawyer, John Haigh, QC, about what would happen if an employee refused to have a urine test on religious grounds, Mr Sinclair said each case had to be treated on its merits. However, endorsement that someone did not have to take a test on religious grounds would create a precedent that could make the policy ineffective.

Airline lawyer Robert Fardell, QC, said proper drug and alcohol testing was needed because employees and managers' impressions of someone's performance were often unreliable.

The case, before Chief Employment Court Judge Tom Goddard and judges Barrie Travis and Graeme Colgan, continues

=========================================

[squire]

This stuff is endemic in NZ and Australia. So what should they do?

[currawong]

TEST.

Why are peoples "rights" often brought up with this issue?

What about the rights of victims of an alcohol/drug related accident?

The three employees mentioned above denied it but were still sacked. Surely a test would have cleared it up either way.

You can be tested anytime on the road.

Many mining companies insist on it as a condition of employment. Their accident stats show it to be a good move.

If you do a job that has critical safety concerns, and you take it seriously, you should be all for it.

Personally I think doctors and politicians should be up for it too.

[pullock]

Rights are about everything, without them it would be fine for the powers that be to perform the same tests that were considered science by Hitler.

If mandatory medical testing in the workplace is condoned then where will it end, we allow drug testing, next it's genetic testing, after that it's mandatory genetic enhancement, mandatory brain washing before advancement, labotomy for management????

The concept of any medical procedure being mandatory to put food on the table is a grose invasion of human rights, and I say we have to stop it at the small things before it gets to the big things, because by the time it gets to the big things, in context they will seem small.

Remember that Big brother is still more than a boring TV show.

[currawong]

So its OK for me to drive pi55ed then?

Seems it should be my right...

[Plas Teek]

No, you can't drive pi#$ed, but sto#ed is OK.

[tenke]

If an employer has serious concerns that their employees performance is degraded by the use of drugs then they should implement measures to prevent this. It is not however, their right to decide legal or moral implications of drug use. Employees rights should be maintained at all costs. Their are many real issues about random drug testing that should be addressed. eg which drugs are being tested for, false positives, false negatives, if the drug is presently affecting someone or whether it is used in the past, litigation, termination of employemnt, rehabilitation etc etc.
I seriously beleive that if drug use is such a problem in the airline industry then tests should be for everyone, everytime one goes to work....that way employers will treat the matter seriously instead of just as intimidation, as it will hurt them cost wise.
It seems people here are ready to dismiss individual rights on this issue as if you have nothing to fear why worry...but you wait til something comes up that may affect you and then you will scream about individual rights.

[SM4 Pirate]

We need to be very careful when considering these types of measures.

I find it absolutely abhorrent that we would go to a testing regime without a proper education process.

Why do we need testing, do we have a problem? Do we know? If we test employees, from a company or regulatory perspective, have we done all we can to eliminate the problem of substance use. note the word use, not abuse.

There are many reasons why people may fail a drug test, depending on the test; it doesn’t mean that they are affected by those drugs whilst at work; I’m not silly I’m sure there are some that are bad apples, but most of us aren’t.

Many drugs, particularly the pseudoephedrine varieties (speed) will trigger most drug tests; but were you affected (possibly you were), was it an illegal substance, i.e. you bought it over the counter at the chemist or off the supermarket shelf.

Then there are the regulatory issues, if you had a pseudoephedrine type drug in your system should you have been at work? Most employers are not very sympathetic to not coming to work because you had a simple sniffle (“soldier on” etc.).

Step one, identify if there is a problem.
Step two, educate to inform or eradicate the problem (if found).
Step three, identify if you still have a problem.
Step four, manage the individuals identified (Don’t say you are all bad if it’s only a few).
Step five, failing all the above steps, introduce a well-controlled, clearly structured process, no surprises, educate and consult staff, be fair and reasonable; it should be considered not a fault of anyone if they are found out; only if they are consistently found out.

Bottle of Rum

[currawong]

Caught this one earlier on the NZ news on Sky.

Reckon this whole beat up might be a cynical marketing move on the part of Air NZ.

After all, who would the travelling public prefer to fly with?

The airline that tests its crews for drugs?

Or the airline that does not?

Testing is so routine in safety sensitive positions in other countries (ie the US) that the media hype seems a little unusual.

Just another angle.

SM4 Pirate nails it - its the some bad apples that make it hard for the rest of us.