Do Drug Tests Violate Employees Rights to Privacy - Coursework Example

Name: University: Instructor Date: Do drug tests violate employees’ rights to privacy? Introduction Drug testing is turning out to be a progressively more acknowledged technique for controlling drug abuse effects in the place of work (Seijts, Skarlicki and Gilliland 194). Given that drug abuse has been related with a drop in corporate productivity as well as a rise in the incidence of work-correlated accidents, the essay will discuss why drug testing is justified by employers on both ethical and legal grounds. Compulsory employees’ drug testing as per Brunet (196) is extremely contentious, and a number of people feel it is a needless expenditure that leads to unnecessary job loss because of urine examinations that are not linked to work performance. Some scholars feel it is a technique of defending employers along with the society on the whole from being hurt by employees who are drug-impaired. This sophisticated issue can be boiled down to only some different perspectives; still, as with lots of ethics debates, the society could by no means concur upon the answer. Opponents of workplace drug testing time and again allude to employee's right to privacy. They claim that in case an employer requests for a urine sample at workplace and the employee’ urine points out that the worker took a drug the night prior to; therefore, this is not relevant to the workplace. This is for the reason that the worker took the substance whilst on his/her own time, and he/she is not inebriated whilst at work, and so, what a worker does on her private time should at all-time remain private. The essay seeks to examine if do tests violate employees’ rights to privacy. Discussion The likelihood of making use of drug interventions at workplace to achieve social change could as per Cholakis and Bruce (32) obscure the more basic subject of whether or not workplace drug testing is a principled way of ascertaining worker substance abuse. Whilst confessing that drug testing might alleviate possible damages, a number of senior managers argue that drug testing exceeds the employer's legal control sphere by dictating the workers behaviour on their private time and in the homes’ privacy (Fortner, Martin and Esen 7). Fresh arguments in support of a more psychologically-perceptive description of worker privacy place incursions by employer into this intimate self-revelation sphere on even less definite moral grounds. According to Kazanga, Tameni and Piccinotti (48) the ethical eminence of drug testing at place of work can be conveyed as a subject of competing interests, between the company's right to make use of drug testing to lessen substance correlated damages as well as increase productivity, over against the worker's right to privacy, especially based on substance abuse which happens outside the place of work. The most often utilised argument for drug test at workplace and which according to Lamberg, Kangasperko and Partinen (96) is the least contentious is to guarantee workplace safety. Basically, employees in safety-sensitive positions must not be high on drugs due to the risk they pose to themselves, their co-workers as well as third parties. However, there exists no commonly acknowledged definition of what safety-sensitive work constitutes, and therefore, the employer has a right in choosing which employees must take part in drug tests for safety measures. This right according to Cholakis and Bruce (33) is open to analysis in various countries in Europe and in different industry branches. For instance, in Denmark, particularly the transport industry where safety measures are vital, the labour court approved safety-sensitive definition by the ferry company, which defined it as covering the whole ships’ crew. On the other hand, in Switzerland the Data Protection Commission directed a key pharmaceutical company to stop their drug testing program for apprentices on account of insufficient safety interest, even though working with chemicals is time and again perceived on average as safety-sensitive. Delogu (48) maintain that the safety argument has been broadened from the conventional issue of health-related safety to now trade-related safety. Delogu (48) further argues that unsuitable consumption of alcohol as well as drugs can generate critical circumstances in the business, wherein poor decisions can cost the corporation millions of dollars. Still this argument is not acknowledged in every country across Europe, which can be seen in the differing extent of drug testing as well as the legal testing limitations. For instance in Netherlands, Norway, and France on one hand, only employees in conventional safety-sensitive ranks are subjected to any form of drug testing (Curtin). Consequently, there is not as much of testing and there are additional legal limitations in abovementioned countries. In France only the work-related physician can decide to carry out drug tests and not the company while in the Netherlands pre-employment drug testing is unlawful. Swedish and British companies, on the other hand, workplace drug testing is frequently used to employees in all levels of employment so as to guarantee business-safety (Bagley 324). The legal responsibility for safety as well as health is the foundation for an additional argument for the surfacing of drug testing programs in the place of work. According to Cranford (1809), the legal responsibility for guaranteeing work-related safety as well as health, lies squarely with the employer, in most of European nation; therefore, employers must exercise due diligence and ensure the place of work is secure. Furthermore, any making corporate legal responsibility tighter could heighten drug testing occurrence; for instance, in the UK for the Corporate Manslaughter Bill 2007 makes directors of all companies in UK legally responsible for avoidable work-related accidents (Schwartz). Kazanga, Tameni and Piccinotti (48) indicate that a number of workers perform below the average while under the influence of drug, and other workers could plausibly perform above the average while under the same influence. Therefore, if the pertinent concern is whether the worker is productive as needed (in line with the normal requirements of the contract as well as position) not whether he/she is more productive than expected, then French, Roebuck and Alexandre (51) affirm that drug use knowledge is needless or inappropriate. This is for the reason that the matter under consideration is not drug use by itself, but also worker productivity. Given that drug use must not relate to anticipations for a certain worker's productivity, drug testing at workplace is inappropriate, and because it is inappropriate to accomplishment of the employment contract, then drugs testing at workplace is unfounded and for that reason stands violates the employee's right to privacy. While Lamberg, Kangasperko and Partinen (96) concur that it is difficult to articulate that the manager has a right to anticipate high productivity from his/her workers, they as well argue that the manager do have a right to a place of work free from the harmful effects of worker’s substance abuse. According to Seijts, Skarlicki and Gilliland (201), drug testing if appropriately comprehended, is not intended for setting up best possible performance, but instead performance which has no drug abuse effects. Given that the evaluation which rationalizes drug testing is not rooted in the effects of drug abuse on a certain worker's performance, but is by and large related on the substance abuse effects on productivity at workplace, therefore, drug testing does determine a pertinent amount (Bush 112). Additionally, it is excessively easier to say that employers must not carry out drugs tests when they have the power to fire workers on a mere failure basis to perform. Rather, employers are keen to endure impermanent factors which could lessen worker performance; such as illness, or sporadic sleep loss. However, as per Casilly and Draper (124) employers have the authority to differentiate such self-correcting factors from factors which could be consistent, in progress, and progressively more unfavourable to productivity, like substance abuse. Such perceptiveness could radically impact their mode of action based on how they handle the worker's failure to perform. Brunet (199) point is astounding, whereby in his own comprehension about workplace drug testing is that X's privacy is restricted by what Y is allowed to know so as to carry out its role with regard to X. If Y (in this case the company) is permitted to know Z (whether or not the worker is a substance abuser) so as to make out if X (the worker) is in a position to perform in line with the employment terms (Brunet 200), then the worker lacks the right to privacy with regard to the information under consideration. Whereas this does not approve the company to acquire the information the way they desire, the plain actuality that the worker would desire that the employer not to realise cannot be enough to make up a right to privacy. The worker is in position to liberally decide to hold back the information, but Bagley (12) posit that this is not excessively calling upon a right to privacy as it is rebuffing the contract terms. If Brunet's disapproval of employer drug testing were well-founded, then possibly all employer’s demands on the worker, from getting to work punctually to offering background information would tot up as coercive, in view of the fact that in all instances where the worker agrees to the employer’s demand there is a high chance that employee would not have agreed if he/she was given a right to choose freely. Still such demands are rational, and the employer has the right to demand them under employment terms and conditions, similar as the worker is likely to get profit by agreeing to those demands. Several arguments have been provided which recommend that workplace drug testing is not acceptable under terms of employment, or is not a rational means through which an employer can use to know if his/her worker abuses drug, and for that reason amounts to a infringement of worker’s right to privacy. Such arguments take account of productivity rejection as a good reason for drug testing, but this form of testing according to Curtin is coercive, and it leads to abuse of worker privacy by chastening behaviour done outside the place of work. Some claim that arguing from a company’s right to increase performance as the main reason why workplace drug testing must be carried out is challenging. Fortner, Martin and Esen (12) indicate that employer possess a well-founded claim on worker’s level of performance, in that when employee fails to perform the expectation of the company, it offer the employer a good reason for sacking or finding mistake with the worker. However, it is not apparent that a company has a valid claim on the best possible level of worker performance; therefore, this is what workplace drug testing is intended to achieve. Provided that drug abuse does not lessen the performance of the worker beyond a certain extent, then as per Cholakis and Bruce (34) an employer has no right to ask for optimal performance of which a worker can achieve. Conclusion In conclusion, it has been argued that drug testing at workplace is an issue plagued with ethical, legal and technical controversies. Policies for workplace drug testing could be uncertain about testing motivation, which nevertheless establishes what form of testing program, must be employed. As observed in the essay, the most solemn setbacks to drug testing are rooted in arguments of data as well as privacy security. Still, employers face a liability to offer a secure place of work and meet commitments to their shareholders which can be achieved if drug abuse is not prevalent. A privacy argument extension is associated to whether employers are entitled to dictate workers’ behaviour when they are outside the workplace. One ware wherein workplace drug testing is seen to impact on employee right to privacy is when performance-related arguments for drug testing are utilised. Employers argue that if the employees’ time off behaviour negatively affects work performance, the employer intention for controlling this is for that reason justified. The ethical argument for workplace drug testing in anyway assumes the right of employee to influence the employees’ personal world as an element of the employers’ social responsibility. Workplace drug testing supporters argue time after time that employee privacy issues are much insignificant as compared to the benefits for the entity, the organisation as well as for the public ensuing from lessened drug use. Works Cited Bagley, Constance E. Managers and the Legal Environment: Strategies for the 21st Century. New York: Cengage Learning, 2012. Berger, Lisa K, et al. "Employee Alcohol Use: Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the General Work-Stress Paradigm." 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