13th June 2006, 02:02 PM
Testing for drugs or alcohol is not necessarily linked to H & S legislation policies. As I said in my earlier post on this topic, if a unit draws up its own policy for Drugs and Alcohol (and any other named substance), conformance with this policy will be part of the contract between employer and employee, and any breach of this could result in disciplinary proceedings.
It may actually be more closely linked with insurance than anything else - some liability policies are invalidated in circumstances where employees are found to have been under the influcence of drugs or alcohol, even if those employeess are not involved in the incident leading the insurance claim.
Vulpes - your statement that 'most archaeological sites are construction sites in the eyes of the HSE' is incorrect. As described in other threads on this board (? Welfare), the most recent guidance from HSE in this matter is the second ACOP to the CDM Regs. where HSE identify certain defined activities that do not fall within CDM as they are deemed not to be construction. Archaeological investigations are one of these defined activities.
Mr Tom Wilson - companies do have the right to sack you if you are ineligable to work on any given project. If you employ someone to dig sites then there is no obligation to find them some office work if by their own actions they are unable to do the job that they were actually employed to do.
Gary Brun - archaeologists would not be operating the JCB themselves, although monitoring one whilst under the influence would not be recommended.
Beamo
It may actually be more closely linked with insurance than anything else - some liability policies are invalidated in circumstances where employees are found to have been under the influcence of drugs or alcohol, even if those employeess are not involved in the incident leading the insurance claim.
Vulpes - your statement that 'most archaeological sites are construction sites in the eyes of the HSE' is incorrect. As described in other threads on this board (? Welfare), the most recent guidance from HSE in this matter is the second ACOP to the CDM Regs. where HSE identify certain defined activities that do not fall within CDM as they are deemed not to be construction. Archaeological investigations are one of these defined activities.
Mr Tom Wilson - companies do have the right to sack you if you are ineligable to work on any given project. If you employ someone to dig sites then there is no obligation to find them some office work if by their own actions they are unable to do the job that they were actually employed to do.
Gary Brun - archaeologists would not be operating the JCB themselves, although monitoring one whilst under the influence would not be recommended.
Beamo