1st March 2010, 05:09 PM
I must say I find it very surprising so many people are on here defending a practice of employers snooping into employees private lives. I wonder if in part its because the workforce who are most likely to be subjected to such invasive policies are the ones not able to post comments on bajr during the day - perhaps those defending the policies are those in office-based positions who are willing to sell field staff's liberites in exchange for a contract.
Nobody here is advocating the swinging of a mattock while pissed or high, but wanting a safe working environment doesnt mean you should automatically accept a situation where all staff are treated as suspected substance-abusers in the workplace, or a policy that basically hopes to stamp out certain behaviour through fear of getting caught rather than education on the risks and consequences of what can happen.
I'm sure we've all seen the graphic images of how a body can be torn asunder should a worker forget to wear their all-important plastic glasses or vis-vest, so why can't similar images be used to deter drinking or drug use at work? The police rarely perform random sobriety checks on drivers - they generally do it when there is a reason to suspect that specific driver of being under the influence.
When you get developers like Balfour Beatty insisting that every worker on a project submit to a urine test during induction, and the policy that anyone testing positive for any drug or alcohol is not only off that project, but blacklisted from all future Balfour projects, it seems less about safety and more about controlling the lives of workers, even when they're not at work.
Nobody here is advocating the swinging of a mattock while pissed or high, but wanting a safe working environment doesnt mean you should automatically accept a situation where all staff are treated as suspected substance-abusers in the workplace, or a policy that basically hopes to stamp out certain behaviour through fear of getting caught rather than education on the risks and consequences of what can happen.
I'm sure we've all seen the graphic images of how a body can be torn asunder should a worker forget to wear their all-important plastic glasses or vis-vest, so why can't similar images be used to deter drinking or drug use at work? The police rarely perform random sobriety checks on drivers - they generally do it when there is a reason to suspect that specific driver of being under the influence.
When you get developers like Balfour Beatty insisting that every worker on a project submit to a urine test during induction, and the policy that anyone testing positive for any drug or alcohol is not only off that project, but blacklisted from all future Balfour projects, it seems less about safety and more about controlling the lives of workers, even when they're not at work.