Date of Award

1993

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Department

Business

First Advisor

Betty LeMasters

Second Advisor

Joseph Lonigro

Third Advisor

Carol Sanders

Abstract

Drug and alcohol testing in the workplace is a highly emotional and complex issue. Society's drug and alcohol abuse problem has become so pervasive that employers are obligated to act to protect themselves, their businesses and their employees .

Business costs have risen dramatically due to lost productivity resulting from drug and alcohol abuse. Employee Assistance Programs (EAP) and rehabilitation efforts have been somewhat successful but are extremely expensive.

Many businesses have chosen to protect themselves by implementing pre-employment drug screening. Some businesses drug test current employees randomly and "for cause". "For cause" has generally been defined as reasonable suspicion or after an accident at work.

These drug and alcohol tests (urinalysis and breathalyzer, respectively) have been challenged by constitutional rights advocates who believe that mandatory testing is an invasion of privacy and an unreasonable search and seizure. Federal and state courts are split on this issue. Many employers are not certain of their legal rights to conduct testing in the workplace.

Organized labor has been slow to support any type of drug testing of employees. Studies show the vast majority of employees and union members favor testing provided it is accomplished in a fair, proper and nondiscriminatory fashion. Many union leaders still believe it is their responsibility to somehow protect members who cannot or will not behave within acceptable workplace standards. Unfortunately, protecting the chronic abuser simply enables the problem employee to continue using drugs and alcohol.

McDonnell Douglas of St. Louis formulated, negotiated and implemented a comprehensive workplace drug and alcohol testing program. This program is generally acceptable to management representatives and union leaders. MDC employees have also accepted the program based on responses to the structured interviews and the questionnaires from the program evaluators identified in Chapter III.

Organizations that are considering adoption of workplace testing should carefully analyze the MDC - St. Louis program. Some elements of that program provide education and training, confidentiality, accuracy, discipline, safeguards for the innocent, medical evaluations of the results, rehabilitation and follow- up testing where necessary.

Employees perceive the program to be fair and reasonable. Therefore, acceptance of the MDC testing program has been achieved.

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