Narcotics and alcohol on the workplace
ANALYSIS OF THE CONCRETE CASE: NARCOTICS AND ALCOHOL ON THE WORKPLACE – ETHICAL REASONS
Introduction
The decision of problems of alcohol and narcotics at the enterprise can put ethical dilemmas before the employer. The choice is bound by the employer of a line of behaviour to balance achievement between reasons concerning the persons having problems with alcohol and narcotics, and a duty correctly to dispose of financial resources and to protect safety of other workers.
Though in some cases workers and the employer can be mutually interested both in preventive, and in medical actions, in other situations those measures which can be offered the employer for the sake of advantage for health and well-being of workers, can be accepted by them as appreciable restriction of a personal liberty. In the same way the actions of the employer undertaken because of its interest in safety and labour productivity, can be accepted as unnecessary, inefficient and as illegal encroachment into private life.
The right to secret of private life to work
Workers consider secret of private life as the fundamental right. In some countries it is provided by the law though it is treated flexiblly, according to requirements of the employer for maintenance (among other purposes) safety, health and high efficiency of work of workers and in achievement of that production or company services were not dangerous to consumers and for sociability as a whole.
The use by workers of alcohol and narcotics, as a rule, descends in a time off and out of enterprise terrain. In case of alcohol it can take place also in enterprise terrain if it is authorised the aboriginal legislation. Any intervention of the employer in connection with the use by workers of alcohol or narcotics should be rather seriously well-founded and be carried out least violent of possible means (if expenses for them are low fidelity comparable).
Two phylums of the methods applied by the employer for revealing of persons, taking alcohol and narcotics, among applicants for a post of the employee of firm, have invoked serious polemic: it is analysis of the materials containing in an organism (respirations, bloods, urine) on the maintenance of alcohol or narcotics, and also oral or written interrogations about the use of alcohol or narcotics in the present or the past. Other methods of revealing, for example, observation and the control, and also computer testing of level of working capacity (working capacity), also have invoked serious questions.
Analysis of the materials containing in an organism
Analysis of the materials containing in an organism – it is possible, most disputable of all methods of revealing. The alcohol maintenance is routinely defined by a capture of assay of breath (by means of the special device) or blood analysis. The most widespread method of definition of the maintenance of narcotic materials in an organism is urine analysis.
Employers assert that such analysis benefits in following ranges:
· safety strengthening
· prevention of responsibility for casualties
· definition of contraindications to professional operability
· labour productivity rising
· depression of delay
· the control of expenses for health services
· strengthening of confidence of sociability that production and company services are effected and delivered safely and properly
· prevention of injury to image of the employer
· identification and aftertreatment of workers
· prevention of thefts
· struggle against illegal or antisocial behaviour of workers.
According to statements of workers:
· against analysis it is possible to object, as sampling of the materials containing in an organism, represents rasping encroachment into secret of private life;
· procedures of sampling of the materials containing in an organism, can be humiliating, especially if it is necessary to effect urine for analysis under the supervision of the controller for a deceit exception
· such analysis – an inefficient mean of strengthening of safety or health
· optimum precautionary measures, more attentive supervision and introduction of programs of assistance to employees – more effective pathes of strengthening of safety and health.
There are also other arguments against check: analysis on narcotics (unlike alcohol) shows not health disturbances at the moment, and only that the narcotic was used earlier, and, hence, it is not an index of ability of the individual to perform work at the moment; analysis, especially analysis on narcotics, demands complex procedures; in case these procedures are not observed, there can be an error involving drama and unfair consequences for work; similar analysis can frame moral disagreements between management and workers, and also mistrust atmosphere.
Others assert that analysis is developed for revealing of the behaviour morally unacceptable in the opinion of the employer and that there is no convincing empirical establishment for this purpose that many enterprises have problems with the use of alcohol and the narcotics, demanding checks at employment, and also selective or periodic checks. All is gross infringements of secret of private life of the worker as these forms of check are effected for lack of well-founded suspicions. Affirms also that check on the use of illegal narcotic materials is equivalent to assignment by the employer of a role of the executor of the law that does not enter into professional duties of the employer.
In some European countries, including in Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands and Great Britain, analysis on alcohol and narcotics is resolved, though is routine in strictly certain circumstances. For example, in many European countries there are the acts resolving polices to inspect of workers, the occupied in road, aviation, railway and sea transport, as a rule, on the basis of well-founded suspicion in intoxication on a workplace. Under reports, checks descend and in a private sector, but is routine in the presence of well-founded suspicion in intoxication on a workplace, and also after casualties or incidents. Intercommunicated also about some cases of check at employment and, seldom or never, about periodic or sampling inspections in a context of the posts bound to raised danger. However in the European countries sampling inspections are rather rare.
In the United States various standards depending on are applied, whether check on alcohol or narcotics the state or private establishments is made. The checks made by the government or the companies according to positions of the law, should correspond to the constitutional demands against unreasonable actions of the state. It has led to that are resolved by courts not only checks for the posts bound to raised danger, but also almost all kinds of checks, including at employment, in the presence of the well-founded cause, periodic checks, checks after casualties and incidents and sampling inspections. From the employer it is not required, that it to a capture of analysises has shown well-founded suspicion in the use of narcotics at the yielded enterprise, in the yielded administrative sectioning or the separate employee. It has forced separate observers to assert that such approach is unethical, as there is no demand of pre-award demonstration of at least well-founded suspicion available problems on the scale of the enterprise or at individual level before carrying out of any phylums of analysises, including selective.
At the private sector enterprises there are no federal constitutional restrictions on carrying out of checks though in few states of the USA there are some restrictions, as procedural, and in essence, checks on narcotics. However in the majority of states of the USA exists a little or absolutely there are no legislative restrictions on carrying out of checks on alcohol and narcotics private employers. Therefore employers make them in is unprecedented wide scale, unlike private employers of the European countries who resort to checks with a view of safety.
Interrogations and questioning
Though interrogations and questioning (made by the employer for the purpose of revealing of the use of alcohol and narcotics in the past or now) are not so rasping encroachment into private life as analysis of the materials containing in an organism, – all of them break secret of private life of workers, and do not concern the demands shown to the majority of trades. In Australia, Canada, a series of the European countries and in the USA there are the laws referred on protection of secret of private life both in state, and on private enterprises which demand that interrogations and questioning had a direct bearing on a surveyed trade. In most cases these laws do not confine open carrying out of interrogations about abuse by materials though, for example, it is forbidden to collect and store the information on abuse by alcoholic beverages in Denmark. In Norway and Sweden the data about abuse by alcohol and narcotics is surveyed by a similar mode as confidential and basically cannot collect, if only it is not recognised by necessary on the special causes and is not approved by a state structure (information inspection).
In Germany the employer can ask questions only for the purpose of definition of abilities and the competence of the candidate concerning work on which he wishes to arrive. The applicant for a post can yield false answers to the questions of private character which are not concerning its work. For example, by a judgement it has been recognised that under the law the woman can answer that it is not pregnant, when actually it is pregnant. The similar questions bound from secret private life, dare a lawful path depending on a concrete case, and, probably, the right to yield the false answer about the previous use of alcohol or narcotics depends on, whether has such interrogation the reasonable attitude to performance of surveyed work.
Observation and the control
Observation and the control are traditional methods of revealing of the problems bound to alcohol and narcotics at the enterprise. Better to say, if the worker shows obvious signs of intoxication (or its consequences) such behaviour will be noticed by its immediate superior. Such mean of revealing of the problems bound to alcohol and narcotics, by means of the management control – the most widespread, the least discordant and enjoying the greatest support at representatives of workers. However the doctrine according to which the decision of the problems bound to alcohol and narcotics, makes more chances of success if it is based on an early intervention, generates an ethical question. Applying such approach to observation and the control, principals of a centre part (inspectors) can is free or involuntarily attribute signs of doubtful behaviour or decline of productivity of work to the use by the worker of alcohol or narcotics in a time off. Such careful observation combined with some assumptions, it is possible to characterise as unethical, and principals of a centre part (inspectors) should confine only cases when the worker apparently is in a drunken state and, hence, cannot perform the work with comprehensible level of efficacyy.
One more question arises because it is necessary to undertake to the principal of a centre part (inspector) when the worker shows obvious signs of intoxication. Earlier series of commentators considered that the principal (inspector) who should play a dominant role in definition of pathes of escaping of this conflict should resolve the conflict to the worker. However now the majority of observers hold the opinion that such confrontation can be counterproductive and is capable to aggravate only problems of the worker with alcohol or narcotics, and consider that the worker should be referred to the conforming medical institution for inspection and, if necessary, – for consultation, treatment and aftertreatment.
Computer testing of level of working capacity (working capacity)
Some commentators have offered a method of computer testing of level of working capacity (depending on application of alcohol and narcotics) as an alternative mean of revealing of the workers who are on a workplace in a state of alcoholic or narcotic intoxication. Affirms that such tests are more perfect, than other, alternative methods as they measure more likely invalidity degree at the moment, than the facts of the previous use; they are more worthy and break secret of private life less; persons can be recognised by invalid on any cause, for example, because of illness, alcoholic or narcotic intoxication. The basic declaimings against these tests consist in the following: they can inaccurately measure an art (by which they urged to measure); they can not find the small maintenance of alcohol and narcotics which can potentially attack labour productivity. At last, the most sensitive and exact tests as it appears, demand rather big expenses and are most difficult in working out and carrying out.
Ethical questions in a choice between disciplinary actions and treatment
One of the most complex ethical questions – when it is necessary to apply disciplinary actions to the employer owing to the incident bound to the use of alcohol or narcotics on work and when appropriate reaction should become consultation, treatment and aftertreatment; under what circumstances both alternatives – disciplinary actions and treatment – can be applied on equal terms. The question on the nature of the use of alcohol and narcotics is bound to it also: whether is it feature of behaviour or illness? Authors of yielded article put forward opinion that the use of alcohol and narcotics in essence is feature of behaviour, but their consumption in unseemly quantities during a certain span can lead to a state of dependence which can be characterised as illness.
From the point of view of the employer, paramount interest the behaviour – labour productivity of the worker possesses. The employer has the right, and in certain circumstances when offence of the worker result ins to consequences for safety, of health or well-being of others, – and a duty to apply disciplinary sanctions. The finding on work in a state of alcoholic or narcotic intoxication can be correctly characterised as offence, and such situation can be considered as serious offence if the yielded person works in the post bound to raised danger. At the same time the person having problems with alcohol and narcotics on work, can have also problems with health.
In case of the ordinary offence bound to alcohol or narcotics, the employer should be offered the worker the certain help to find out, whether there are at it problems with health. The decision on abandoning of such help is, basically, the legitimate right of workers which, probably, do not wish that the employer knew about their diseases, or, possibly, at all have no problems with health. Depending on circumstances the employer can warn also about application of disciplinary sanctions.
Reaction of the employer to a situation bound to serious offence as a result of the use of alcohol or narcotics, for example, on a finding in a state of alcoholic or narcotic intoxication on work, bound to the raised danger, should, probably to be other. Here the employer faces as an ethical duty to sustain safety of other workers and sociability as a whole, and with an ethical duty to be fair in relation to the worker who has made offence. In such situation maintenance of public safety and immediate excision of the worker from the yielded post should be more important ethical problem of the employer. However even in case of such serious offence the employer should assist the worker in reception of appropriate medical aid.
Ethical questions in consultation, treatment and aftertreatment
Ethical questions can arise and in connection with the help rendered to workers. First of all it concerns problems of survey and a direction on treatment. Such services can appear service of professional safety and public health services at the enterprise, the medical officer bound to the program of assistance to employees, or the doctor-therapist at whom the yielded worker is treated. If there is no of the specified possibilities, to the employer, possibly, it is necessary to find the experts who are engaged in consultation, treatment and aftertreatment in the field of narcology, and in case of need to suggest the worker to contact them for survey and a direction on treatment.
The employer also should take measures to reasonable support of the worker during its absence on work because of treatment. The paid bulletin and other kinds of lawful payments should be given the worker in that degree what is possible for hospitalisation. If the out-patient treatment demands changes in an operating schedule of the yielded person or its transfer into the incomplete working day the employer should meet such requests (in that measure in what they are proved). It is especially important when presence of the yielded worker of the person at labour collective can be the stabilising factor in its recover. The employer should give all support to the worker and, at the same time, to provide special control measures behind conditions of its work. In that degree in what working conditions have made pristine impact on the use by the worker of alcohol and narcotics, the employer should effect appropriate changes in working conditions. If it is impossible or will not lead to practical results, the employer should consider the problem on transfer of the worker into other post, if necessary – after expedient retraining.
One of the complex ethical questions arising thereupon: to what degree the employer should continue to sustain the worker who is absent from work on a state of health because of the problems with alcohol and narcotics, and at what stage the employer should dismiss such worker on an aetiology? The employer should adhere to a following guide: absence on work because of the problems bound to alcohol and narcotics, it is necessary to survey the same as any absence on work on a state of health, – and the principles applied to any dismissal on a state of health, should be applied also to dismissal because of absence on work because of the problems bound to alcohol and narcotics. Besides, the employer should remember that the palindromia which, in effect, is a part of the process conducting to an absolute recovery is possible.
Ethical questions in attitudes with consumers of illegal narcotics
In attitudes with the worker who uses or used in the past illegal narcotics, the employer all time is before a complex ethical choice. For example, the question on was brought up, whether it is necessary the employer to dismiss the worker arrested or condemned for crimes, bound to narcotics. If the crime is so serious that the yielded person is sentenced to imprisonment, that, certainly, it cannot perform the work. However in many cases consumers of narcotics or small street drug dealers (which smoothly so much goods sell to sustain own individual requirement) can be sentenced only to the conditional conclusion or the penalty. In such cases the employer routinely should not resort to disciplinary sanctions or dismissal in punishment for the similar actions which were taking place in a time off and out of terrain of the enterprise. In some countries in case the yielded person has an executed adjudication, – i.e. the paid penalty or imprisonment, conditional or real, left completely, – such person can be statutirily protected from discrimination in labour attitudes.
Other attention to the question is sometimes brought: whether the person using or using in the past illegal narcotic materials can, to be object of labour discrimination from outside employers? We assert that from the point of view of ethics any discrimination of the persons using illegal narcotic materials or using them in the past is inadmissible, – if it takes place in a time off and out of terrain of the enterprise and if the yielded person in the rest is applicable to work performance. Considering it, the employer should be ready to reasonable acclimatisation of a regimen of work to requirements of the worker which is the consumer of illegal narcotics and is absent from work for the purpose of consultation, treatment and aftertreatment. Such point of view is recognised, for example, in the federal law of Canada on human rights which forbids labour discrimination on the basis of physical inability and qualifies alcoholic and a drug dependence as physical inability. Similar mode the French labour legislation forbids labour discrimination on the basis of illness or physical inability if only the industrial doctor does not define unfitness of the yielded person to work. On the other hand, the federal legislation of the USA protects from discrimination of the persons using illegal narcotic materials in the past, but not those who uses them now.
There is a following basic principle: if the employer knows that the applicant for a post or the worker uses or is suspected of the use of illegal narcotic materials in a time off and out of enterprise terrain, and such use essentially does not influence enterprise functioning the employer is not obliged to give this information in law enforcement bodies. Norms of the legislation of the USA, demanding carryings out of testing by the governmental organisations, order that about applicants for a post and workers, whose results of analysis on illegal narcotic materials have appeared positive, should not intercommunicate in law enforcement bodies for criminal case excitation.
However if, – on the other hand, – the worker is engaged in the activity bound to illegal narcotic materials, on a workplace or in enterprise terrain, the employer from the ethical point of view can be obliged or apply summary punishment, or reporting about such case in law enforcement bodies, or make both that, and another.
One more important reason which should be considered to the employer, confidentiality is. It can becomes knows that the applicant for a post or the worker uses illegal narcotic materials, as the yielded person can voluntary open this information for health reasons – for example to facilitate change of an operating schedule during consultation, treatments and aftertreatments. The employer is allocated strict ethical, and is frequent also a legal duty to conserve any information of medical character in strict confidentiality. Such information should not reveal to law enforcement bodies or someone else without the expressed consent of that person which it concerns.
In many cases the employer can not know about, whether the worker uses illegal narcotic materials, but it becomes known to service of professional safety and public health services as a result of medical inspection for the purpose of definition of professional operability. The expert in professional safety and public health services is bound by an ethical duty to conserve confidentiality of the medical data and can be bound also demands of medical secret. In such circumstances the service of professional safety and public health services can reporting to the employer only about the fact of medical operability or unfitness (the circumscribed operability) yielded person to work and has no right to open the nature of any disease or the forecast to the employer or any of the third parties, for example, to law enforcement bodies.
Other ethical questions
Attention to working conditions
The lawful duty is routinely assigned to employers on maintenance of safe and healthy working conditions. However the mean of its realisation in a context of problems with alcohol and narcotics is often abandoned to the discretion of employers. Representatives of workers convince that many problems bound to alcohol and narcotics, basically, result from especial working conditions (such as the long working day, the isolated work, night work, boring or a blind-alley employment; the situations bound to intense interpersonal attitudes, danger in work; a low payment; the official duties bound to the big strain and low influence), and also other circumstances, result ining to stress. Such factors, as for example, availability of alcohol or narcotics, and also the corporate practice encouraging binge at the enterprise and out of it, also can result in to abuse by alcohol or narcotics. Employers should be attentive to such factors and undertake appropriate measures on struggle against them.
Restrictions of consumption of alcohol and narcotics at the enterprise
The few object to that alcohol and narcotics should not be used during the valid operating time practically in all trades. However there is more delicate question: whether it is necessary the enterprise to forbid or confine alcohol sale, for example, in the dining room or cafe? Supporters of a rigid line would began to prove that is necessary to head for an absolute interdiction that availability of alcohol in enterprise terrain can encourage actually to consumption of alcohol of those workers which differently would not drink, and that the use of any quantities of alcohol can have negative consequences for health. Supporters of the liberal approach would began to prove that similar restrictions of legal activity are illegal, and that at leisure, in a lunch rest, the worker should have the right to be relaxed and, at desire, to take alcohol in moderate quantities.
However the adequate answer from the ethical point of view lies somewhere in the middle between these two extreme measures and in the big degree is defined by social and cultural factors, and also professional conditions. In some cultures binge became so an integral part of public and business life that employers prefer more likely to allow to use certain kinds of alcoholic beverages during lunch rests, than completely to forbid them. The interdiction can force to go workers behind binge from enterprise terrain to a bar or beer where the culture of consumption of alcohol can be more extreme. The larger quantity of alcohol can be as a result drunk or instead of beer or wine a hard liquor can be used. In other cultures where binge – not so integrated feature of public and business life, the interdiction for sale of any kinds of alcoholic beverages for enterprise terrains can be taken over with ease and will not lead to negative results in the plan of the use of beverages out of the enterprise.
Preventive maintenance by means of information, educational and curriculums
Preventive maintenance – it is possible, the major component of any system of actions for struggle against an alcoholism and a narcomania on a workplace. Though the persons abusing alcohol and narcotics, undoubtedly, deserve the special attention and treatment, the majority of workers drink moderately or use the narcotics resolved by the law (for example, tranquilizers) for strain putting off. As they compound the majority among workers, even small influence on their behaviour can affect essentially potential quantity of casualties on work, on labour productivity, quantity of delay.
It is possible to ask a question, whether is the enterprise a suitable place for carrying out of preventive actions by means of information, educational and curriculums. Such preventive efforts, in essence, are subordinated to the general problems of the state public health services; their purpose consists in an explanation of injury which causes to health of each person the use of alcohol and narcotics. Their audience are workers, economically dependent on the employer. The answer to similar questions is that such programs contain also valuable both the helpful information on dangers and consequences of the use of alcohol and the narcotics inherent to the enterprises. Besides, the enterprise is, probably, most organised part of the medium daily surrounding the person, and can become a suitable forum for information diffusion on public health services. Workers routinely do not accept negatively the campaigns made by members of public health services if they have no compulsory character and are referred on belief, recommending to variate behaviour or a mode of life.
Though employers should be attentive to that programs of the state public health services are oriented not so much on forcing, how many on belief – the ethical choice should be made in favour of initiation and support of such programs, not only for the potential advantage of the enterprise bound to an economic gain from reduction of number of problems with alcohol and narcotics, but also for the sake of the general well-being of workers.
It is necessary to notice also that workers have ethical duties in connection with a problem of alcohol and narcotics at the enterprise. To these ethical duties it would be possible to carry a duty to be applicable to work and to abstain from the use of alcohol and narcotics directly ahead of the beginning of work or during it, and also a duty to show vigilance to such materials, performing the work bound to raised danger. Other ethical moments concern a duty to assist colleagues who, apparently, have problems with alcohol and narcotics, and also to frame at the enterprise friendly atmosphere of support for those who tries to overcome these problems. Workers should co-operate also with the employer in carrying out of expedient security strengthening measures and health at the enterprise, concerning alcohol and narcotics. However workers are not obliged to agree with an intervention in their private life when for this purpose there are no the strong reasons bound to work or if the measures demanded by the employer, are disproportionate to the purpose it is necessary for them to reach.
In 1995 on the international occurring of experts the SQUANDERER where there was 21 expert on equal terms representing the governments, bunches of employers and the organisation of workers, has been taken over the Practical code under the decision of the questions bound to alcohol and narcotics at the enterprise (ILO 1996). In this Practical code many ethical questions which are necessary for surveying in connection with problems of alcohol and narcotics on a workplace are taken up. The practical code is especially beneficial as a help stuff as in it practical references under the permission of the potential problems bound to alcohol and narcotics are yielded also, able to arise in a context of labour attitudes.