From big mining companies to inner city law firms, more people are turning up to work these days and being handed a sample jar, some paper work and a simple request – that they submit to a workplace drug and alcohol test to see if they’re fit for duty.

It’s because we’re all becoming more health and safety conscious, according to Tony Graham, who runs a company that conducts workplace drug and alcohol testing.

“Insurance companies are driving some of this, but people are becoming more conscious of workplace health and safety…

“People are starting to take on the fact that a safe workplace obviously has to involve this sort of testing,” he says to 612 ABC Brisbane’s Terri Begley, who was drug tested for this story.

Michael Cope, the president of the Queensland Council of Civil Liberties, agrees that in safety critical areas, drug and alcohol testing is justifiable. However in other industries, the testing is more controversial.

“This comes down to a proposition of whether we ‘work to live’ or ‘live to work’,” says Mr Cope.

“If we accept the proposition that we ‘work to live’, then there are very real restrictions to the right of an employer to investigate people’s private lives.”

Ann Milner, Chair of the Queensland Legal Society’s Industrial Law Committee, agrees that the law is a little murky when it comes to distinguishing between an employer’s legitimate safety concern, as opposed to when they’re interfering with a worker’s lifestyle choices.

“I think it is harder to justify certain random testings in industries like retail where people are working in shops or law firms where people are sitting at their desks,” she says.

“But then, I think that if there’s a suspicion held that a person’s capacity to perform their job is actually impaired, I think that can be a basis for testing, but I think random testing in those sorts of circumstances is still really to be tested in the courts in terms of whether that’s justified in all industries.”

Mr Cope from the Council of Civil Liberties is also concerned that employees have few rights in this area.

“There are some awards which give you some rights – outside that, there is no general right to object to this testing,” he says.

“Obviously if you got dismissed, you could then say you’d been unfairly dismissed, in terms of the normal industrial relations legislation… but there is no specific legislation dealing with this topic that I’m aware of in Australia…

“The only privacy protection you have is that the Privacy Act prevents employers from collecting information about people that is not legitimately connected with their performance of their role, but there’s not general privacy legislation dealing with this topic.”

Employees may have legitimate reasons to object to testing: even teetotallers may be taking prescribed drugs – like diet tablets, anti-depressants or anti-HIV drugs – that they’d like to keep private. However, these drugs will show up in their test.

“People have the right to privacy when it comes to medication,” agrees Mr Graham, who conducts the tests.

“The bigger companies – particularly mining companies we deal with – will ask people to talk discreetly with their supervisor and let them know that they’re taking medication that they’ve discussed with their doctor that indicates that they probably shouldn’t be working on machinery…

“They’re not required by most companies to disclose what the medication is, simply to go and see someone and say, the doctor has recommended that I don’t operate machinery for two days, three days whatever it is…”

The experts agree, however, that regardless of the complicated issues surrounding workplace drug and alcohol testing, the practice is here to stay.

“This certainly seems to be a worldwide trend,” says Mr Cope, although he points out that recent British research concluded that drug testing is only justified in the most safety critical areas and does not have a deterrent effect.

Tony Graham disagrees. “Basically since man got up off his hind legs and got his knuckles up off the ground we’ve been putting things into our system to change the way we feel so whether it’s alcohol or other drugs, people are going to continue to do it.

“The trick is if we can educate people to do it more safely… Testing is certainly doing that because people are becoming aware and becoming more careful about the environment in which they consume drugs/alcohol.

“It’s not going to go away. There will be more testing done, it’s growing all the time, but has the size of the problem increased? Probably, realistically, no.”

By Luise Straker

Source – http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2010/03/15/2845810.htm