Drug testing in the workplace
This is an excerpt from the paper...
Drug testing in the workplace has been undertaken by employers who are concerned that drug use by employees poses a danger to coworkers and the public, reduces productivity, costs the company money, and contributes to health problems which adds further to company costs. Drug testing in the workplace conflicts with our view of personal privacy and raises questions about how far employers can go in analyzing personal habits of employees. Workers are concerned that such testing might lead to employees being disciplined or fired, and employers are concerned as well that instituting testing might lead to lawsuits over errors, privacy issues, violation of rights, or unauthorized disclosure of test results. Some feel that the testing itself may not be adequate or accurate, contributing to such problems. The courts have been called in to adjudicate these and related matters and have ruled on how far employers can go in drug testing and in the use of drug testing results.Commentators note that controlling drugs in the workplace is one of the most difficult problems facing employers today: The use of alcohol and drugs during working hours is most often a covert activity that is identifiable only by circumstantial evidence. The frequency of substance abuse has, however, required that employers institute policies and procedures to control and contain a problem that can otherwise affect safe operations, company morale, productivity, and profitability (Fuqua and McHaney).
. . .
mployees continue to reject management's reasons for doing so (Menda).
There are two basic motivations for drug testing in the workplace. The first is to increase organizational efficiency and/or productivity by reducing absenteeism, safety problems, and similar concerns. A second goal involves the idea that drug testing represents an objective, simple way to deal with the complex problem of drug usage. Employers accept the idea that drug testing represents an objectively based alternative to depending on the judgment of the supervisor in a potential drug usage situation and presume that the drug test will provide a clear cut answer to questions of abuse by an employee (Crow, Fok, and Hartman 298).
Employers must be careful in instituting a drug testing program, however, for if they make a mistake, they may find themselves in court, defending the company against charges of negligence, violation of privacy, defamation, or violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) or Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. A number of lawsuits in the 1980s decided the basic issue, that employers do have the right to conduct drug tests, so that private employers may screen employees with pre-employment testing, investigate accidents by
. . .
Some common words found in the essay are:
Steele Rodman, , Workplace Act, Stewart Black, Management Association, Rights Act, Justice Douglas, Hill NCAA, Supreme Court, Fourteenth Amendment, drug testing, testing workplace, drug testing workplace, supreme court, fundamental rights, bill rights, drug tests, law journal, alcohol tests ruled, drug alcohol, justice douglas, fourteenth amendment, drug alcohol tests, tests ruled acceptable, drug testing represents,
Approximate Word count = 1674
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)
More Essays on Drug testing in the workplace
|
Customer Service
to Over
32,000 Professionally Written Papers!!!
