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Employers Struggle To Find Workers Who Can Pass A Drug Test
HughPickens.com writes: Jackie Calmes writes in the NYT that all over the country, employers say they see a disturbing downside of tighter labor markets as they try to rebuild from the worst recession since the Depression: the struggle to find workers who can pass a pre-employment drug test. The hurdle partly stems from the growing ubiquity of drug testing, at corporations with big human resources departments, in industries like trucking where testing is mandated by federal law for safety reasons, and increasingly at smaller companies. But data suggests employers' difficulties also reflect an increase in the use of drugs, especially marijuana -- employers' main gripe -- and also heroin and other opioid drugs much in the news. Data on the scope of the problem is sketchy because figures on job applicants who test positive for drugs miss the many people who simply skip tests they cannot pass. But Quest Diagnostics, which has compiled employer-testing data since 1988, documented a 10% increase in one year in the percentage of American workers who tested positive for illicit drugs -- up to 4.7 percent in 2014 from 4.3 percent in 2013.
With the software industry already plagued by a shortage of skilled workers, especially female programmers, some software companies think now would be the wrong time to institute drug testing for new employees, a move that would further limit the available talent pool. "The acceptability of at least marijuana has shifted dramatically over the last 20 years," says Carl Erickson. "If the standard limits those that have used marijuana in the last week, you're surely going to be limiting your pool of applicants." Erickson's decision not to drug test stems from a low risk of workplace injury for his workers combined with an unwillingness to pry into the personal lives of his employees. "My perspective on this is if they want to share their recreational habits with me, that's their prerogative, but I'm sure as hell not going to put them in a position to have to do it."
With the software industry already plagued by a shortage of skilled workers, especially female programmers, some software companies think now would be the wrong time to institute drug testing for new employees, a move that would further limit the available talent pool. "The acceptability of at least marijuana has shifted dramatically over the last 20 years," says Carl Erickson. "If the standard limits those that have used marijuana in the last week, you're surely going to be limiting your pool of applicants." Erickson's decision not to drug test stems from a low risk of workplace injury for his workers combined with an unwillingness to pry into the personal lives of his employees. "My perspective on this is if they want to share their recreational habits with me, that's their prerogative, but I'm sure as hell not going to put them in a position to have to do it."
... pretty much every company knows better than to try.
Hopefully, this will be a wake-up call for these business to critically re-examine _why_ they care about drug testing.
Is there a shortage of female programmers? Shortage implies that we need more. Why do we need more female programmers? Can female programmers do something that male programmers cannot? I don't think so. So, what, exactly, is the problem here?
Don't fornicate. Seriously, just don't do it.
Only problem is: people can test positive for a few weeks after having used drugs. And while no one wants to hire an addict, many of those people are just recreational users who take something in the weekend, i.e. when it's no one's business what they get up to. I don't care what my heart surgeon drops in the weekend as long as he is sober come Monday.
I had a chat with a colleague from the US about this, when I admitted I smoke pot (a couple times a year). He asked if I wasn't afraid to test positive in a random drug test, and he was surprised to hear we have no drug testing at all; in the Netherlands, it is unheard of in an office environment. Medical tests in general may only be used to look for conditions that impair your ability to carry out your assigned duties. Testing positive once is not considered proof that you have a condition preventing you from working well, and cannot be considered proof that you are more likely to report to work under the influence. Tests in the workplace are rare, and pre-hiring drug screens are not allowed at all (you can't pose a safety risk if they haven't hired you yet). On-the-job testing is allowed, but only in the context of safety, and testing positive might result in being sent home, not in being fired straightaway. Only in a few exceptional cases like pilots or air traffic controllers are employers allowed (or even obliged) to keep to a zero-drugs policy. Alcohol tests are treated slightly different, because they are much more accurate in measuring actual influence at the time of the test (i.e. during work).
In most cases of recreational drug users, you'll never know if they took anything during the weekend if you don't test... so what is the problem? If they take too much, or use on the job, you will notice it... and you can take action in those cases. The law here does allow for disciplinary action in such cases, and allows for on-the-job drug testing of that employee if he is noticeably impaired, or during a rehabilitation course.
You could argue that in some cases it is critical to check the mental well-being of workers, for example we wouldn't want intoxicated software engineers developing code for pacemakers or heart monitors. My arguments against drug screens in such cases: 1) drug screens only tell you that someone has used drugs in the past days / weeks, but say nothing about how fucked up they are right this minute, nor how often they take them. 2) if your software quality control cannot catch errors introduced by intoxicated (tired, worried, overworked, momentarily dense, distracted, malicious) employees, then maybe you shouldn't be developing software for medical devices.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Yes. You test doctors for legal drugs that effect their performance as surgeons. There are many legally proscribed drugs that make it illegal to drive or do all sorts of other things. A doctor on a heavy dose of legally proscribed opiates should not be doing operations.
This is not a mistake. I don't care about what the ATF or the DEA says. I'm not the federal government and the same old tired pothead arguments are not of interest to me. I've heard them all before and you're speaking at cross purposes.
My point is not to stop you from getting high. Get high. I don't care what you inject into yourself. Legalize all drugs. Literally anything. What is legal or illegal is not relevant to me.
My interest is what I am willing to accept in my work place. I will not accept "this". And I will act on this basis. End of story.
Any mine in the field you want to lay won't matter to me because I know where those fuckers are buried and a legal or rhetorical minefield is meaningless if I know where all the mines are buried and have the sense of mind to not step on any of them. I will go from point A to point B in the most efficient manner possible evading the specific mines blocking my path. At best you'll slow me down by seconds. You'll waste more of your time laying them than you'll waste of mine evading them. Create a system where I have to be a sociopath to avoid your bullshit and you'll find me doing what I do with a smile, a whistle, and not a fucking care in the world.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
There was an article on this a few years ago. The issue was not that more people were using drugs. It was that commercial industry was diving right into the drug-testing and using tests/standards far beyond even that of the military and the FBI.
It can be harder to pass a drug test to be a mail room clerk than an agent.
I have had problems in the past where I have had a failed drug test in the past for Amphetamines, and was not told this until I kept challenging why I failed. It was only later this was a false positive for Methylphenidate, while being an illegal drug in the UK without prescription, I have one.
If I hadn't have chased down why I failed it, it would have been upheld that I failed.
I had even stated in the pre-test form that I take it, so something broke down in the chain. I did resent having to declare this however, as my ADHD management is my own business, not my employers if my management strategies mean I can perform.
Big corporations with nothing better to do than nose in your business. Truckers, train engineers, and a hand full of other occupations, this matters. The receptionist at my broker? I don't care what she does in the off hours. Heck, she could probably be high on the job and it wouldn't matter. It'd be a bad public image if she was obviously laughing at everything else and stuffing her face with twinkies; but that's beside the point. If you've got residual THC in your system from the weekend and you're not acting like an idiot, IT MAKES NO FUCKING DIFFERENCE TO MOST JOBS SO PISS ON CORPORATIONS THAT WANT OUR PISS.
Uh, what? What on earth makes you think the same people advocating for H1Bs are also arguing for less drugs testing?
One group is actively trying to reduce wages, the other is simply pointing out that it's ludicrous to eliminate a high talent pool of workers from software development simply because they wear faded black clothes and smell like a teacher's breakroom.
Are you trolling or do you have a serious reason to believe the two are the same group, because I'm not seeing it.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
I had to take a federally mandated drug test once when I was taking opiods occasionally for kidney stones. When I was filling out the paper work I noticed there was no area to list prescriptions. I asked the person administering the test where to note this just in case it showed up in the test, and she said they didn't collect that information. This told me one of two things, either they were only testing for a narrow subset of drugs which didn't include opiods, or they can't be bothered to try and filter out positives from prescriptions.
I would think the second to be more likely but I haven't heard anything from HR asking me to explain the results of the test. The second is looking more and more likely but it seems incredible to me that they wouldn't check for opiods seeing as how heroin has been on the rise, and opiod abuse is a real issue in the US.
> the Feds and drug tests are mandatory.
And you are ok with the fact that the drug testing companies are generally the ones who push for those laws?
Lets not forget Florida where the governor pushing for drug testing people on welfare actually owned the drug testing company which made millions off the deal. That is really what its about.
Hell, going as far back as the first marijuana laws, they were pushed for; at the federal level; by the head of the FBN, the very organization that had been in charge of alcohol prohibition and was now worried they might lose their jobs with nothing to do.
Seems kind of wrong to me deny people jobs just so other people can make profits.
And that is before we even get to the Nixon administration where insiders from his own administration have admitted they pushed drug laws as a way to strike back at grass roots political movements:
http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/...
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
No pot smokers there... nope everybody smokes meth at the ford plant. Because with meth you can pass a drug test the next day.
Funny coincidence, the big factories all started drug testing in the late 70s & early 80s... right about the same time all the American car manufacturers started cranking out garbage cars.
Its almost like potheads make better factory workers than meth heads.