Undercover or not ?

Craig D

I am relatively new to the forum and I need some opinions or ideas. We are locatated in Middle TN the meth capitol of the U.S. We have received word that there may be several indulviduals on second shift dealing illegal drugs and some drug use. We give a drug test at hire, work related injuries and when we have a solid suspicion of some one being under the influence. We do not random test because we feel that we are telling all of our assocaites that we do not trust them. My question is should we bring in an undercover officer on second shift to try and root out any dealers that we may have or is there a better way of handling this? I would appreciate any input anyone would have.

Thanks,
Craig D.

POPEYE

Craig, Check out the Tenn. Drug Free Workplace program @ 1-800-332-2667. (or the TN DOL website) Don't allow you or your company to develop the mindset that if you do random testing you don't trust your EEs. You will be making an attempt to provide as safe a workplace as possible by weeding out those that choose to possibly be HIGH at work and could be considered a potential safety threat. You will only be carrying out your responsibility.

Pork

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 05-25-04 AT 01:30PM (CST)[/font][br][br]CRAIG Now that you have admitted to the cyber world that you have personal information which indicates 2nd shift is not drug free, you have a legal requirement to do something, take action to investigate the information. Should it be the case, and you have not done anything to correct the unsafe situation, the company is in for a major shock in individual pain and suffering. You, personally, be found as personally neglient in the prevention of an injury.

I have and would again use undercover personalities in this situation. I have one currently employed as a full time employee and only I know this is the fact. He has found some use but for the most part there is a lot of bragging about who can get what and for how much. He has gone to the person, we had heard was the pusher, my insider believes the dude is all talk and no contact, in about another week this employee (my cover employee) will transfer to another work site and try to un-cover a 2nd rumored "HOT SPOT", THIS ONE INCLUDES PROSTITUTION ON SITE BEFORE BREAKFAST. I can't wait to hear that this is going on. After my cover transfers from the 2nd shift to the other work site, I will go in and call the one "dude" up for a "for cause" drug test (OUR POLICY). I will personally take him to the physician's office at 8:00AM and if he is positive he'll be suspended from work until the drug test is identified by a lab to be positive, at which time the suspension will be lifted and immediately terminated. If negative he will be returned to work. If refuses to provide a urine sample for testing, he;ll be terminated on the spot.

Undercover employee does pay for the extra trouble. I convienced the leadership they did not need to be involved, the fewer people who know the better the results. They support me in my efforts to keep our work sites safe and non-violent. Just make sure you tell them you are going to do this and get their blessing for you will never know where this might lead. My cover employee has got a world of information about the work he has been doing. It could lead to even very senior ees that you would never expect. We nailed one of the owner's son; the owner's were heavy family and the board of directors (brothers, sisters, and uncles) got involved and transferred the son to lower LA to work and clean up his act.

Hope this helps!

PORK

Craig D

Thanks Pork, I have spoke with top management and they are in concurence that we need to move on this right away. I will be the only person as you are that will know who this person is. I also informed them that we might be finding out things they may not wnat to know, but they have agreed to go ahead. I will be interested to see what comes of your second problem.

Thanks again,
Craig D.

Pork

Craig: I am also looking forward to hearing the results of his employment. By the way don't be in a rush to get information, sometimes it takes a while to establish a report with the other employees so that there is a level of trust that they are willing to get loose with this new ee. Time will tell and tell all, if it is there. My cover has a lot of experience in this arena and can recognize BS from the real thing.

PORK

sonny

I'm just curious Pork, how did you go about recruiting this guy?

Pork

SONNY: Just happened to have an x-employee who got selected to become a member of the local sheriff's possey on drugs. He was then able to also organize our security force as contract labor for evening shifts for their time we pay for their personal attention of our facilities. This deputy sheriff made arrangements with me to hire one of his undercovers for a drug link which included a thread within one of our complexes. We use a substance call dynamate with our HOGs and this chemical is an ingredient in making a "medium quality crack". Our initial sting was designed to find out how much our company was producing "crack". As it turned out we were not involved but one ee was and he was doing a lot more bragging than stealing dynamate!

Good luke got to go!

PORK

LindaS

I like the idea of having someone undercover in these types of situations. We had a similar situation a couple of years ago and we contacted our local PD about it and got NO assistance. The impression I received from the PD is that the individual in question was a "small fish" and not worthy of their spending too much time on.

This employee is no longer working for us (due to attendance issues) and I haven't heard of any additional problems.

crawfod

As a fellow middle Tennessean, I am curious what your source is for us being "the meth capitol of the US"? That's news to me.

Random drug testing is pretty well accepted in today's times, but it needs some analysis first (Who gets tested, how much will this cost, are you conveniently located to the test center, are you willing to free up the employee and a supervisor to escort them during work hours, etc.)

At my previous employer, we cooperated with the local PD, but it was a bad experience in that the undercover guy was a bad worker who was having to do this to get himself a lighter sentence, the Supervisors knew right away something was up when we bypassed them in our normal selection process, and for whatever reasons our workforce figured out what he was pretty quickly. There were no arrests, it created some resentment, and we had to finally fire the guy for absenteeism after only a couple of months.

Shadowfax

Craig As have others, I have used undercovers with great success. Consider picking the agency you want to use, then have your attorney hire them and receive all of the reports. This will make the reports atty/client priviledged, which could be an advantage down the road.

marc

Good point Shadowfax. The privilege issue could be quite valuable. My own experience with recruiting undercover EEs is limited to one experience. This person was an ex-detective with the Denver Police Department. I got three references from the public affairs people in the DA's office with two phone calls.

Sue

Excellent advise from everyone. Just keep in mind, that testing might not catch the dealer - if he or she is not a user.

Sunny

When I worked in Nashville some years ago, we had similar suspicions of our second shift. We did hire an undercover operative through one of the major agencies. This turned out to be a good choice as the agency provided major support during the subsequent arbitration hearing on the firings that resulted - and we won the case.

Balloonman

Craig,
Make sure you keep us informed as this develops.

My $0.02 worth!
DJ The Balloonman