The union response to employer-initiated drug testing programs

Abstract

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.