5 Legal Considerations regarding Employee Drug Testing
Employee drug testing has been around for some time, with more and more employers recognising its benefits as far as health and safety in the workplace are concerned. However, employee drug testing has always been a tricky issue. There are a lot of legal factors to be taken into consideration, and that is why we have been constantly reminding employers that if they’re thinking about instituting an employee drug testing program, they should run it by their lawyers first before implementation to avoid any legal issue that may arise. (more…)
With rising synthetic drug use, employers are now faced with the added challenge of testing their employees for the said drugs, says Trish Mehaffey in a report for The Gazette.
Cannabis may be regarded worldwide as one of the least harmful of all illicit drugs, but a new study claims it actually has fatal consequences, particularly among teenagers, says a report by Sophie Scott for ABC.
More and more employers are now implementing drug testing in the workplace. Private business and government agencies both are beginning to recognise how beneficial workplace drug testing can be. It is, however, not without issues. Controversies about drug testing abound, particularly when it’s random in nature or requires urine samples. Workers protest that drug tests of this kind is an invasion of their privacy, and therein lies much of the issues with drug testing in the workplace.
A surge in drug-related crimes in the Victorian cities of Wodonga and Wangaratta is being blamed for the rising use of the illegal drug ice in the state, reports Tahlia McPherson for Dungog Chronicle.
If you’re an employer and you haven’t drafted a clear cut workplace drug and alcohol policy just yet, don’t worry. You’re not alone, as countless other companies have yet to formally write down rules for their employees to follow as far as drugs and alcohol are concerned. However, don’t take too long to come up with a drug and alcohol policy for the workplace. Every single day counts, and you wouldn’t want to be dealing with a drug and alcohol-related issue in the workplace when you don’t have a policy in place.
Workplace drug testing has been around for some time now, but controversies continue to hound it. These controversies are hardly surprising. Workplace drug testing, after all, will always be a contentious matter because it essentially triggers a collision between the interests of the worker and the interests of the employer. Employers want them done in the name of workplace health and safety and business productivity, while workers typically cry invasion of privacy and dignity robbery when forced to undergo workplace drug testing.