Supervisory and nonsupervisory employee attitudes about drug testing

Both supervisory and nonsupervisory employees are divided in their support for drug testing n the workplace. Comparisons are drawn between employee attitudes displayed in this study with student and public attitudes reported in previous studies. Factors associated with employee attitudes toward drug testing include: occupational group, acceptance of related employer disciplinary rules, interest in training on assisting those with substance abuse problems, and the timing of discipline and referrals for assistance. The implications of these findings for drug-testing programs are discussed.     

Employee drug testing: A constitutional perspective

The proliferation of employee drug testing by federal and state governments and by private sector employers acting pursuant to governmental directives has led to a steadily growing number of lawsuits raising constitutional challenges to such testing. Most of these cases have been based on the Fourth Amendment's prohibition of unreasonable searches and seizures. In 1989, the Supreme Court addressed the constitutionality of employee drug tests for the first time in two cases,Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives' Ass'n andNational Treasury Employees Union v. Von Raab. Recognizing that urinalysis drug testing constitutes a search for Fourth Amendment purposes, the Court determined the constitutionality of the drug tests by balancing the governmental interest in the testing against the privacy interest of the employees and, in both cases, upheld the drug testing at issue. TheSkinner andVon Raab decisions provided guidelines for analyzing Fourth Amendment challenges to employee drug testing, and the lower courts are now in the process of applying and refining these guidelines. Constitutional challenges to employee drug testing programs have also been based on the due process clause and the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and on the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of religion. Unlike Fourth Amendment claims, however, these claims have rarely been successful.     

Consistency vs Flexibility: The Impact of Employee Voice in Rule-Based and Discretionary Decision Procedures

Consistency and flexibility are desirable, but incompatible, features of decision-making procedures. A comparison of a rule-based decision procedure (maximizing consistency) with a discretionary decision procedure (maximizing flexibility) was conducted. Employee voice was predicted to interact with decision procedure in impacting fairness perceptions. Student participants (N = 128) in a 2 × 2 laboratory simulation viewed videotaped depictions of a supervisor discussing a positive drug test result with an employee. The employee was given, or not given, an opportunity to explain; the supervisor was permitted discretion in determining the consequence or was completely bound by company policy. The proposed advantages of each decision procedure were obtained under contrasting levels of employee voice. Voice was desirable when the supervisor had discretionary authority; voice was unnecessary or even detrimental when a rule-based procedure was used. No overall preference between these two decision procedures was evident.     

Drug testing in the transportation industry: The maritime case

The maritime industry provides an interesting case study of the design and implementation of drug-testing programs in the transportation industry during the 1980s. It is clear that such programs were designed and implemented less because of empirical evidence of safety problems than for political reasons. The results in the maritime industry are indicative of a program that is expensive to operate, intrusive with regard to employee privacy, and which will have little or no impact on safety. Focusing such programs on the issue of impairment rather than on the issue of drug usage per se is likely to improve the outcome of the programs. Although, despite common belief, there is little evidence that drug usage or the “drug problem” in U.S. society as a whole had gotten worse in the preceding years (Schonsheck, 1989, 250–251).     

An analysis of the drug testing decision

Two separate investigations were undertaken to better understand the factors that should be considered in the drug testing decision. In the first study, organizations were surveyed by telephone and were asked to identify the factors considered when making their decision. Safety seemed to be the most important reason for favoring a drug testing program, while employee rights was one of many reasons for not implementing a testing program. In the second study, the interest was in determining the impact of drug testing on the applicants' willingness to join the organization. It was found that salary was the most important factor, but that the drug testing policy did affect the job choice of about 20% of the students.     

A better approach by management in drug testing

Discussed here are a number of drug abuse and drug testing issues. This article presents an overview of current developments in the area of drug testing in the workplace. There is an analysis of legislation, federal and state court decisions, and key legal arguments. These decisions and arguments are discussed in the context of employee rights and responsibilities. Also presented are the legal and ethical aspects of drug testing in the workplace. The authors make a case for a rehabilitative rather than a punitive approach to employee drug abuse.     

Attitudes toward employee and employer rights in the workplace

A large sample (N=692) of undergraduate business majors were surveyed in order to assess their attitudes toward 54 different employer activities that might impact on employee rights in the workplace. Demographic and lifestyle measures as well as one personality variable, authoritarianism, were also included in the survey. A factor analysis on attitudes toward employer activities revealed three distinct factors, which we labeled private, polydrug (i.e., polygraphs and drug tests), and normative activities. Mean levels of agreement with employer actions were highest for normative and lowest for private activities, with polydrug activities falling in between. All mean differences were highly significant. Authoritarianism proved to be the strongest predictor of attitudes toward both private and polydrug activities.     

The effect of job impact,job interdependence,and employee characteristics on the acceptability of a drug-testing policy

Increasingly employers are testing employees for illicit drug use. Employees vary in their degree of acceptance of drug-testing policies. Both job and individual characteristics are hypothesized to affect individuals’ reactions to drug-testing policies. The first study reported here investigated the effect of job impact, job interdependence, sex, and age on four aspects of the acceptability of a drug-testing policy. While there was no effect for the job characteristics, both age and sex had significant effects. A follow-up study which focused solely on employee characteristics replicated the age effect. Implications are discussed.     

Predicting On-the-Job Substance Abuse with a Written Integrity Test

This paper explores definitions and predictors of employee substance abuse, using 173 employed undergraduates who completed a prominent written integrity test and a self-report of work behaviors, including on-the-job (OTJ) alcohol and drug abuse. Approximately 21% of participants reported recent OTJ abuse and were significantly more likely than nonabusers to exhibit other counterproductive work behaviors. Validity coefficients for the integrity test's Employability Index (r = –.25) and Drug Avoidance Scale (r = –.39) suggest that such measures can reduce OTJ abuse, but the procedure's effectiveness may be limited by the high rate of false negatives. We discuss suggestions for improving psychological testing to reduce OTJ abuse.     

Drug testing in the workplace: An overview of legal and philosophical issues

This article examines a range of legal and philosophical issues related to the drug-testing debate. The discussion of legal issues includes potential litigation on constitutional grounds (for public employees), statutory and tort grounds, or on the basis of civil rights legislation. Arbitration standards are also examined for situations involving unionized employees. The article further highlights pragmatic issues including the accuracy and costs (economic and noneconomic) of drug tests as well as the distinction between a positive drug test and impaired performance. Finally, the article addresses the delicate balance between an employer's right to unimpaired performance and an employee's right to privacy.     

Evaluations of Drug-Testing Programs

In three experiments undergraduate students at an urban university evaluated drug-testing programs described in scenarios. Evaluations were inversely related to the false positive rate and were more favorable when a positive test result led to rehabilitation than when it led to termination of employment. Inconsistent effects on evaluations were observed for ability of the test to distinguish between previous drug use and current drug-based impairment, false negative rate, and implications of drug-impaired performance for public safety. There was also mixed evidence concerning the relation between evaluations and respondent belief in a just world. These results provide some support for Crant and Bateman's (1989) justice-based model of reactions to drug-testing and have implications for organizational drug-testing policies.     

药品物流作业活动调查与工作分析

通过对药品物流企业物流作业活动的调查研究和工作分析,详细描述药品物流作业活动内容、目标、要求,从事药品物流作业活动人员所需职业能力;概括说明药品物流特点和药品物流从业人员必须知识与能力,为药品物流企业建立物流作业活动的标准操作规程,物流人才的培养、从业人员职业能力的提升提供参考。     

Drug testers versus nontesters: Human resources managers’ perceptions and organizational characteristics

Survey responses from 134 human resources managers (50 from drug testing and 84 from nontesting organizations) indicated that representatives from drug testing organizations were no less likely than their counterparts from nontesting organizations to know that drug tests cannot assess performance impairment. However, awareness of this limitation of drug testing was associated with greater perceptions of testing as invasive of privacy and unsound for dealing with drug use in the workplace. The prevalence of drug testing was related to organizational size and industry type, but unrelated to perceptions of employee’s drug use. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Employee attitudes toward drug testing: Effects of individual characteristics and employment setting

Testing for the presence of drug continues to gain popularity as a method for controlling drug use in the workplace. It is important that employers understand how potential applicants and current employees will react to the various types and purposes of drug testing. Employees (n = 529) were interviewed to investigate the role of attitudes toward drugs and work setting characteristics in explaining acceptance or rejection of drug testing. Individuals believing users should be held responsible for becoming dependent on cocaine, who felt the primary cause of cocaine addiction was weak moral character, and those who felt cocaine users should be treated as criminals were more supportive of drug screening and the testing of current employees.     

The union response to employer-initiated drug testing programs

The testing of employees for drugs has become a major workplace issue in the late 1980s. By all accounts, many firms have implemented, or at least considered, some sort of drug screening program. While various experts have debated the importance and necessity of initiating such programs, there has been only limited investigation of the differences between union and nonunion workplaces in how such programs are initiated and administered. This article investigates some questions related to those differences. The first part examines the differences between union and nonunion workplaces and their implementation of drug screening programs. We present differences derived primarily from the fact that nonunion employers are constrained only by constitutional and statutory law in their introduction and implementation of drug screening programs. Unionized employers, on the other hand, are constrained by collective bargaining and the grievance resolution process. The second part of the article examines union responses to employer-initiated drug testing programs. The third part examines arbitration decisions on drug testing provisions in unionized workplaces. We outline the major areas in which arbitrators have rendered decisions, including definitions of behavior that could trigger reasonable suspicion testing and whether the employer has the right to unilaterally institute or expand drug testing programs.     

Don't “just say no” to drug testing in the workplace: Some recommendations for developing and implementing policy

The widespread use of contraband substances by organizational members continues to present policy makers with a plethora of legal, moral, and economic issues to contend with when designing and implementing a comprehensive substance abuse policy. This article addresses methods of drug testing and their relative advantages and limitations, the legal ramifications of policy decisions, including union and nonunion concerns, and the costs and benefits associated with drug testing and screening. General guidelines for the design and implementation of a substance abuse policy are offered, and it is suggested that organizations should not summarily dismiss drug testing as a vehicle for the control and elimination of contraband substances and their use in the workplace.     

Correlates of Drug Testing Attitudes in a Sample of Blue Collar Workers

Using responses from 1429 workers employed in the wood products industry, we examine the relationship between drug testing (DT) attitudes and several demographic, organizational, job attitude, and job outcome variables. After controlling for age and marital status, analyses revealed moderate correlations between DT attitudes and alcohol and drug variables, DT program characteristics, organizational, and work attitude variables. DT attitudes were weakly but significantly related to absences, late work arrivals, accidents, and injuries. Implications of the findings and future research suggestions are discussed.     

Canadian and American Reactions to Drug and Alcohol Testing Programs in the Workplace

We investigated U.S. and Canadian reactions to workplace drug and alcohol testing programs. Canadian truck drivers (n = 183) deemed drug and alcohol testing policies less fair, and were less accepting of these policies, than their American counterparts (n = 153). We also compared the perspectives of recipients versus third-party observers with regard to their reactions to a drug testing program. Unlike the pattern observed among American observers, the responses by Canadian observers were highly similar to those of the recipients. Canadian observers were more inclined to file a formal protest regarding the implementation of a drug and alcohol testing program than were U.S. observers. The results also showed that procedural and interactional justice principles contributed to the program's fairness, acceptance, and lower levels of protest intentions in both Canada and the United States. We propose that scholars and practitioners can gain a better understanding of multinational reactions to drug and alcohol testing by considering not only cultural but also historical, social, political, and other environmental factors that can shape reactions to personnel practices.     

Drug testing and the law

This article examines judicial and administrative rulings and legislation involving or related to the issue of drug testing in the workplace. It discusses the rights of employees in the public and private sector: constitutional rights; federal, state, and local statutory rights; rights of unionized employees; and common law rights. It analyzes both the current state of the law and future directions the law may take, as courts and administrative agencies decide more cases and governmental bodies continue to pass drug testing legislation.     

Exploring the ethicality of firing employees who blog

This exploratory study evaluates the ethical considerations related to employees fired for their blogging activities. Specifically, subject evaluations of two employee‐related blogging scenarios were investigated with established ethical reasoning and moral intensity scales, and a measure of corporate ethical values was included to assess perceptions of organizational ethics. The first scenario involved an employee who was fired because of innocuous blogging, while the second vignette involved an employee who was fired because of work‐related blogging. Survey data were collected from employed college students and working practitioners. The findings indicated that the subjects' ethical judgments that firing an employee for blogging was unethical were negatively related to unethical intentions to fire an employee for blogging. Moral intensity was positively related to ethical judgments and negatively related to unethical intentions to fire an employee for blogging, while individual perceptions of ethical values were negatively associated with unethical intentions. Finally, subjects perceived that terminating an employee for innocuous blogging that did not target an employer was more ethically intense than was firing an employee for work‐related blogging. The implications of the findings for human resource professionals are discussed, as are the study's limitations and suggestions for future research. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.