Well unfortunately you as the employer would have to put up with the fact that the inconvenience you may have to endure as a result of lacking the right to snoop around and invade the privacy of your staff is trumped by the right of your staff and prospective staff to privacy (in most cases).

Lot's of things may affect worker productivity. Smoking, drinking alcohol, having a poor diet, failed relationships, chronic insomnia, being a young woman (and therefore probably wanting to have kids in the near future), pre-existing medical conditions, etc etc . Most of these fall well within the private sphere. Are you seriously suggesting that an employer should have the right to insist on screening for all of these things ?

Also, we aren't just talking about the process of hiring. In the main drug testing would be carried out on existing members of staff. In that circumstance an employer would already know full well how they were performing in the job. If you have a member of staff who's performing fine that you're happy with then why do you care if they smoke a little dope at the weekend ? What business is it of yours ?

Sassenach wrote:If you have a member of staff who's performing fine that you're happy with then why do you care if they smoke a little dope at the weekend ? What business is it of yours ?

This is exactly what I am saying, Sass. It is the employers choice! They can make the decision. The employee can make decisions based upon that.

Am I suggesting that an employer has the right to screen for:
Smoking? YES!
Alcohol? YES!
Poor Diet? YES! (This is especially important if insurance costs are the employers)
Failed relationships? Hmmm, I don't know of a test that would screen this. Anybody else?
Chronic Insomnia? YES!
Not hiring a young woman? YES!
Pre-Existing Medical conditions? YES! (Perhaps because costs would be incurred to facilitate a building to that conditions)

All of these items are in the private sphere. Does and employer have to test for all of these things? Certainly not! Do they have the right to make judgements upon what they feel is best for their company? Yes.

For the record, I would not hire a smoker. I do not think it shows a good customer relations image. The smell of smoke is anathema to me, and I should have that choice as to hiring a smoker.

To answer the other point Sass made earlier:
I think the information being released to authorities is a problem two ways.
Litigiously (sp?); it opens the door for law suits. A person could claim that they were wrongly arrested, and after beating the legal charge could sue the company.
Government intrusion: It is the responsibility of the police to bring charges and investigate.

To bring the point Sass made about employers being complicit to a personal level... Have you ever reported anyone you have seen using drugs to the police? Wouldn't that make you "complicit"? Why didn't you? (Yes it is an assumption that he did not report, but I think I am correct on this)

If you voluntarily submit to random drug testing & the humiliation that goes with it - you certainly cannot be left alone to fill the cup - perhaps you should also allow your firm to install cameras in your house. After all, there are so many behaviors that can lead to poor performance (your landlord may also want in on this too to protect his/her property). Big brother is no longer the government - it is THE FIRM!

This is exactly what I am saying, Sass. It is the employers choice! They can make the decision. The employee can make decisions based upon that.

Just out of interest, is there a line that you don't think should be crossed in terms of employer rights ? Should employers have complete rights to discriminate against blacks and homosexuals in the same way you think they should be allowed to discriminate against smokers and young women ? In fact I find it interesting that you openly state how comfortable you are with gender discrimination. That's illegal here, although I'm quite sure that many small businesses flout that law all the time. Are you suggesting that an employer should be entitled to fire any employee who gets pregnant, or for that matter any employee who falls ill ?

I must say I'm struggling to come to terms with your 'choice' argument here. It strikes me that the only choice is being made by the employer. Employers have vastly more power in the relationship than employees do. If you have a mortgage to pay and a family to feed then you don't have all that much flexibility in your choices, you have to earn a living. If your employer suddenly demands that you submit your entire private life to his scrutiny or you'll be fired then the only 'choice' is a my way or the highway scenario, where the highway means unemployment, inability to pay the mortgage and poverty. Sure, some people would be able to just walk into another job, but many would not. there aren't a whole lot of jobs to go round atm, and in many cases you get situations where one employer dominates the local labour market in a town. What 'choices' do employees have then ?

Being Black is not a personal action. Therefore discrimination would be illegal. Suppose a stripper gets pregnant. Should the business be required to still employ her? I would think not.
Getting pregnant is an action.
Smoking is an action

Do you think a company must continue to employ a person who is "ill" and unable to do the work? Where is the fairness to the employer there. Should an employer make as much effort to assist an employee that has illness or medical issues through no fault of their own? I feel an employer should be caring for it's employees, and make efforts to keep jobs open for pregnancies, illness, family issues (dementia parents come to mind), etc. It is good for the workplace if employees feel cared for. It is the human thing to do. That being said; a business should NOT be required to do these things. It should be done out of the goodness of the heart for the plight of the fellow man.

Employees have the choice to not do illegal drugs. (That was simple)

The gender thing, whoa!
That's illegal by any standard. I agree it is probably often used in determining what employee is best for your open position. Just as religion has no part in your choice but if you had a job applicant come to your company and they were overly "saintly" you might fear hiring that person because of all the wearing that already goes on in your company? Maybe a Gentleman was overly feminine and he's selling building supplies where that sort of person would often be shunned ...do you want him calling on your customers who do not want to work with him? The choice of taking X over Y will be stated as something to do with experience or education or interpersonal skills and never would someone admit sex, sexual orientation or religion was a factor but we all know it plays a part quite often. I understand why Bbauska makes this statement but I have trouble outwardly accepting it and prefer to keep it hush-hush as to exact reasons why someone was not selected when it comes to such touchy matters. And this certainly leaves the door open for someone who can determine they were in fact passed by when better qualified, I have no problem with them being able to sue for such actions, but it's going to be a tough sell for them, if the employer is THAT obvious, then they should be sued!

I understand the Federal law regarding pregnancy. I choose to disagree with it, but abide with the law.

Does a stripper have the right to have a job back after pregnancy? What about Hooter's not hiring a man? Why?

GMTom makes my point about judgment in the hiring process. Our appearance, mannerisms, smell, and voice make a lot of the choices. Is that discrimination? Perhaps we should just have a piece of paper with SSN, and resume with all descriptive data removed.

Sass and Heck Tate, what do you think an employer does not have the right to allow or disallow in his/her workplace?

It does seem like you are prepared to provide Employers all the powers of feudal lords. In exchange for employment people seem to have to give up their ability to make personal choices.
People fought for hundreds of years in order to have the freedom to make choices privately.
You, for the sake of suppossedly empowering employers to control more of their work space seem prepared to give away all those freedoms.

Its all well and good to suggest that employees can leave. I doubt the choice is anywhere near equal, as in times of high unemployment workers in these conditions have little or no choice.
Indeed one of the problems with empoyer based health isurance is that people with "pre-existing conditions" don't really have the freedom to move to new employment. Right now employees move less in the US than in most western countries. The expression "trapped in a job" comes to mind.

There is a careful balance struck in the employment equation between the rights of the worker and the rights of the employer. It seems to me that you are tipping that equation back to the Industrial revolution and to working conditions that were barely above indentured service. There is great opportunity for abuse by employers if they are as unrestrained as you prefer them to be; and when there is opportunity to abuse, some will. Perhaps many if the noit too distant past of employment history is a guide to employer behaviour.
.

Being Black is not a personal action.

Neither is being young and female, but you seem to have no problem with that form of discrimination. You could arguably say that homosexuality is a personal action, certainly making the choice to have sex with another man is anyway, so I guess this is fair game for discrimination ?

The argument about pregnant strippers is not really a very strong one because I'm not arguing an absolutist position. Obviously it's perfectly ok to discriminate on grounds of suitability for the job, and since very few people would pay to watch a pregnant stripper (and those who would pay for that would have to be seriously weird and creepy individuals) you could easily say that a pregnant woman fails to meet the basic requirements for employment in that position. Likewise a man confined to a wheelchair couldn't function as a fire fighter. But what you're apparently saying is that employers should be free to discriminate on whatever grounds they like.

I am firmly in the freaking middle with you guys!
Employers have a right to hire who they like ...to a point

I think we all agree that some things might matter that may normally be discriminatory? Fat girls can be passed by for a position as stripper, a Muslim wearing her Burka can be passed over as a bible salesperson? What about a white person selling soul food supplies in an inner city? (that one is a toughy isn't it?) But we can't allow an employer TOTAL freedom, especially since they can pretty much get away with this as it is. I'm pretty much fine with the way it is, if they decide they don't like women and they are foolish enough to make it obvious, then they are dumb enough to be sued. I hate racists, but if an employer discriminates based on race, he can pretty well hide that as well, but should he make it apparent that he will not hire "your race here" then he should be sued of course!

bbauska wrote:Litigiously (sp?); it opens the door for law suits. A person could claim that they were wrongly arrested, and after beating the legal charge could sue the company.

Woah! You are concerned about litigation for passing on information about a potential crime, but not about litigation brought as a result of prejudice and unfair discrimination? Seems a tad odd to me.

As has been noted, you've said that it would be ok to refuse to hire a young woman in case whe may fall pregnant. I don't know about in the USA, but that would definitely be covered by age and sexual discrimination laws in the UK. And it suggests you'd rather like to be able to get rid of a woman if she falls pregnant, if it wasn't for those meddling liberals and their maternity laws.

This is what I meant by absolutism. The idea that employers should be able to have carte blanche, and the odd ideological trope that unfair behaviour by a private entity is fine, but if a government gets near to it then it's the worst thing imaginable. Due to the 'power' of the state. Has it not occurred to you that employers also have power? That particularly large companies, or those with a significant local presence, have some power through control of assets etc.

The essential difference seems to be that you think employers should be able to prejudicially discriminate, whereas Sass and Heck Tate (and me also) would argue that this is wrong. Employers should be able to discriminate based on ability, or performance, or attitude, but not based on the idea that if someone is X or does Y in their own time without affecting the employer or the workplace, that they are 'the wrong kind of person'.

There are exceptions - people whose job it is to uphold the law should not be breaking it. People who are responsible for the health and safety of others should accept higher standards. If someone does something and it becomes public and so has a detrimental effect on the employer, then that is different.

But snooping around is inappropriate for most employees. If someone is underperforming, then by all means try to work with the employee to find out why and if they don't co-operate then there are disciplinary routes.

Mind you, I guess I have a different perspective coming from a country that does not have laws that allow instant hire and fire, and working for a company that for the whole 15 years I've been there has treated me with respect.

Oh, we have plenty of laws about this sort of stuff, Brad is simply posting his personal feelings. But we do get to points where "rights" get in the way of an employer being able to do the "right" thing and fire an employee.
I think Brad is going waaaay over the line on some issues here but what this topic was about is the right to test for drugs.
Some believe an employer should do whatever he wants
Some believe an employer has no rights whatsoever and can not test one for drugs no matter what
Most of us are in the middle and there are plenty of positions in that vast middle ground.

What I personally find troublesome is those who agree drugs affect ones job, they agree SOME positions should be tested but are not willing to test all people. That makes no sense to me, this level of job importance is flat out wrong. You simply can not tell me drug uses does matter but only this or that position can be tested. Nobody has yet offered any sort of list to who can and can not be tested because I guarantee we can keep adding to that list until the people left who can't be tested is zero.

What I personally find troublesome is those who agree drugs affect ones job, they agree SOME positions should be tested but are not willing to test all people. That makes no sense to me, this level of job importance is flat out wrong. You simply can not tell me drug uses does matter but only this or that position can be tested. Nobody has yet offered any sort of list to who can and can not be tested because I guarantee we can keep adding to that list until the people left who can't be tested is zero.

Nah, it would be a much shorter list than that. Mine would be anyway, I think even Heck Tate's list was too long. Certainly I wouldn't include teachers or people involved in food preparation because I don't think that either involve an especially acute risk to the safety of others. But really I'm not about trying to draw up a definitive list, that would be silly and overly prescriptive. What I've said all along is that there should be a presumption in law that mandatory testing is forbidden but that it can be overriden in certain circumstances, which would mostly concern only those positions where there's a fairly significant risk to the health and safety of others but may also be extended to jobs in such areas as law enforcement and state security (for obvious reasons). It would be up to a judge to determine whether an employer has crossed the line, but they should have to make a pretty strong case to defend against a wrongful dismissal suit.

GMTom wrote:Some believe an employer should do whatever he wants
Some believe an employer has no rights whatsoever and can not test one for drugs no matter what
Most of us are in the middle and there are plenty of positions in that vast middle ground.

Well, while Brad has come close to the former, I've not seen anyone espouse the latter. Perhaps you can furnish us with an example?

What I personally find troublesome is those who agree drugs affect ones job, they agree SOME positions should be tested but are not willing to test all people. That makes no sense to me, this level of job importance is flat out wrong.

You don't think that all jobs are the same, surely? That some are not more onerous in terms of responsibilities, or more physical, or have different implications in terms of other people?

What these people are saying is that there are real world compromises that can be made, for pragmatic reasons. It's the opposite of an absolutist position (yet you claim not to have taken one, as you seem to argue that all people could be tested).

You simply can not tell me drug uses does matter but only this or that position can be tested. Nobody has yet offered any sort of list to who can and can not be tested because I guarantee we can keep adding to that list until the people left who can't be tested is zero.

Again, I've seen people posting lists, and providing bases for them.

Why do you have to misrepresent the debate so much, Tom?

So drug use is something that can be judged differently based upon type of employment? That sounds like discrimination to me...

I do not believe an employer can do anything he/she wants. I think most employers are fine people that you would want to work for. The ones that are jerks shouldn't have employees anyway. Where is the big issue?

As for not wanting the employer to give the information to the police, I guess I could be swayed to accept reporting if Sass, Heck Tate and Danivon want. It seems a bit off base for them, but what the heck!

Look at Unions and tell me they DON'T have power. Yes, employers have power. So do the employees. Are you saying they don't, Danivon?

If an employer discriminates based upon race, color, religion, sex, or national origin (Civil Rights Act of 1964), then he/she should be brought up on charges.
I have already covered race
I have already covered color
A person's sex is not the issue. If a woman who is not pregnant can have a job, but a pregnant woman is released, it is not an issue of sex
I have no problem with a business hiring anyone based upon religion. I would be surprised if a Jew or Muslim would work at a hog farm, but they could if they chose to.
National origin is no issue to me.

Am I following the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with my way of thinking? Why or why not? The employee has the choice as to where they work.

BTW, Thanks to RickyP for the promotion to Feudal Lord. It is a small promotion, but baby steps...