Drug and Alcohol Testing of employees

swynia

I am curently working on re-drafting my company's drug and alcohol testing policy and I am interested in what other companies do on a couple of things.

1. If an employee tests positive during a random/reasonable suspicion/post-accident test, do you terminate immediately or refer them to a treatment program? (My current company policy is to refer them to a treatment program and if they enroll they can keep their job. If they don't they are terminated.)

2. If you have an employee who enters a treatment program voluntarily, (not due to an employer intervention of any sort) but notifies the company of what they are doing, do you randomly test them when they come back to work?

Thank you for your imput on this topic!!

Irie

1. We refer them to treatment and have them sign a reinstatement agreement. We have the right to test randomly for two years after treatment. If they test positive they lose their job.

2. We randomly test these employees within the following two years as well. They sign the reinstatement agreement too and if they test positive they are terminated.

LarryC

swynia, you're on the right track. Minnesota requires employers to give the employee a chance to rehab on the first offense. You can terminate on the second offense.

On your second point, you can require post-positive drug tests for up to two years afterwards. This is over and above your normal random testing, which can only be "safety sensitive" positions.

pork1

SWYNIA: ANY REFUSAL TO PROVIDE A URINE SAMPLE FOR TESTING AND ANY POSITIVE RESULT CALLS FOR AN IMMEDIATE TERMINATION.

If we discover the situation the ee is terminate; a "confession and the seeking help" is a step in the right direction and a referral for treatment under the FMLA and Medical leave policy will sustain one's position for 12 weeks. From this point, the individual is returned ready for work and any drug testing at any time or circumstance that we choose. Any failure to pass the testing will call for an immediate termination.

By the way, we have just changed our policy to withdraw an option for appealing a drug test with a more sensitive test. The reason is there is no medical facility in our area that will allow the individual to give a hair or blood sample for testing. Therefore, we simply deny any right to appeal with written proof that that the first urine test was invalid. I also learned that "grass with THC chemical" is the only drug that stays in one's blood system for sufficient amounts of time to allow for an appeal of the original urine test. We actually had an employee that came out positive for Cocaine and desired to atest/appeal the positive findings. We gave him 24 hours to get back with me with a negative result. The next day he travelled and called all over our area of interest and could not find a facility. We let him do another urine test and he came out negative. Which was about 24 hours since the first test, which was positive for cocaine.

We put him back to work and on an "on-call notice" for testing for 6 months and he agreed to participate.

PORK