Drug Testing In The Workplace Essay

1056 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Workplace ethics privacy

This paper will discuss not only the rights of the employee in the workplace, but also the company’s obligation to ensure a safe working environment. An employee has the right to privacy in the workplace. However, these rights are fewer at work than in their personal life. There is debate on what is moral, ethical, and legal in regards to monitoring the actions of an employee in the workplace by the employer. Is the use of a polygraph or drug test morally justified by the employer or is it a violating reach in the privacy of an employee? In the past, employers could ask a prospective or current employee to do a polygraph test, or lie detector test, to measure the person’s truthfulness in his statements. The polygraph measures responses of the person by tracking functions of the body such as perspiration, respiration, pulse, and blood pressure. Employers would ask extremely sensitive questions about family finances, …show more content…

It can be argued that drug testing is a waste of money and that not all users are abusers. Just as alcohol can be used responsibly, so can marijuana. The issue seems to be that the employer is familiar with alcohol, but the use of marijuana is an alien subject. Most employers don’t care if you drink alcohol on the weekend, the problem is if the employee is drinking on the job which puts themselves and others at risk. Therefore, if an employee is smoking or ingesting marijuana on the weekend, on their own private time, and not on company time, why should they be subjected to an invasion of their privacy. The problem with marijuana use is that the time it stays in the person’s system varies anywhere from ten to ninety days and it depends on how much, how often, and how long a person has been smoking. However, other factors must be assessed before concluding regarding drug

Show More
Related

  • Analysis Of Fitbit For Bosses By Lynn Stuart Parramore

    542 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Fitbit for Bosses written by Lynn Stuart Parramore she talks about how bosses want to start monitoring their employees. Parramore shows her discomfort with this idea. She thinks that “big money seems poised to trump privacy”(Parramore). Which basically just means that for bosses is that money is over everything even privacy. Allowing bosses to monitor their employees is dishonest and manipulating.Some researchers have also found out that increasing surveillance has caused the decrease of productivity. Researchers warned them that the data can have big errors and people that look at the data that the fitbits can cherry-pick the information that supports their beliefs and ditch the rest of the information that leads to racial profiling. “Surveillance makes everyone seem suspicious, creating perceptions and expectations of dishonesty.” Workers will become dehumanized“(Parramore), it prevents them from experimenting and exercising the creativity on the job.” A woman from California filed a suit against her former employer because he forced her to to install a tracking app on her phone. She had to have it on her phone 24/7 or else she would

    Read More

  • The Unfairness of Drug Testing in Low-Wage Jobs

    866 Words  | 2 Pages

    If we don't have an academic degree our privacy gets raped, but if we are able to get a degree America doesn't set up boundaries for us. Although drug testing is an excellent tool to maintain a healthy and safe workplace, it is unfair and unjust to the low wage working class because it targets them. For instance; doctors, surgeons, and even teachers are not required to be drug tested as often as low wage workers.

    Read More

  • The Increase of State Surveillance in the United States and United Kingdom

    521 Words  | 2 Pages

    With today’s technological surveillance capabilities, our actions are observable, recordable and traceable. Surveillance is more intrusive than it has been in the past. For numerous years countries such as the United State and the United Kingdom have been actively monitoring their citizens through the use of surveillance technology. This state surveillance has been increasing with each passing year, consequently invading the citizen’s fundamental constitutional right to privacy,. This has lead to the ethical issues from the use or misuse of technology, one such ethical issue is should a government have the right to use technology to monitor its citizens without their knowledge or approval? For this reason this paper will examine what the terms ethics, ethical issue and state surveillance refer to. Next, an exploration into the ethics of governmental monitoring from the perspective of a variety of ethical systems such as: ethical formalism, act utilitarian, rule utilitarian and subjective relativism model. From this examination of state surveillance through ethical syste...

    Read More

  • Influence of Medical Marijuana on Employment in California

    1326 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the United States, more than ten states have legalized the use of marijuana for medical reasons. These states include California, Hawaii, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Vermont, Rhode Island, Nevada, and Washington among others. The Supreme Court of California holds that a state law does not have the power to completely legalize marijuana for any purpose since federal law regards the use of marijuana as entirely illegal (Boire and Feeney 13). This paper seeks to explore whether an employee in California can be fired for use of marijuana if he or she has a doctor’s prescription.

    Read More

  • No Drug Testing in the Workplace

    954 Words  | 2 Pages

    Is it appropriate for employers to test staff for drugs or alcohol? How reliable are these results? Why should some one invade your privacy? Do drug testing determine your skills level for a job? What do drug testing in the work force prove? The arguments against drug testing are it is excessively invasive, may damage relations between employers and employees, and could hamper the recruitment and retention of good staff. In 1986 the Regan administration recommended a drug-testing program for employers. In 1991 The Omnibus Transportation Employee testing act of 1991 were passed. It required mandatory drug testing in trucking and other industries. Over the past 25 years drug testing in the military has increase. Today, approximately 62% of all employers in the US have mandatory drug testing program. Drug testing in the work force have been a very controversial topic ever since. Drug testing should not be in the workplace since it does not measure on the job impairment, do not prevent accidents and is an invasion of privacy.

    Read More

  • Persuasive Essay On Legalizing Marijuana

    2085 Words  | 5 Pages

    Employers have the choice whether to hire a person not if they smoke marijuana. If one does have the legal right to possess and use marijuana, the work place can still enforce their zero-tolerance policy on their employees and press charges. Employers also use the zero-tolerance policies “as a means of promoting workplace safety, productivity and employee health and a safeguard against liability for the actions of an employee who may be impaired while on the job.” Some employers try to accommodate employees with the need to smoke marijuana for medical purposes. Marijuana backers argue that employers are required to accommodate employees that have disabilities that can only be treated with medical marijuana. This argument is only valid if the certain employee can still perform and function after using their prescribed medical marijuana. Advocates supporting marijuana also say that “other fully legal drugs, many of which are sold over the counter, such as painkillers and antihistamines, can impair one’s ability at work just as marijuana can” The Drug-Free Workplace Act allows a certain amount of allowance to employers of how they carry out their mandates. This approach to the situation can save employers money without having to worry about the expenditures of drug testing employees. In order to protect themselves from the liability issues surrounding medical marijuana, these employers “should ensure

    Read More

  • Random Drug Testing is Ethical and Necessary

    1164 Words  | 3 Pages

    The ethics of drug testing has become an increased concern for many companies in the recent years. More companies are beginning to use it and more people are starting more to have problems with it. The tests are now more than ever seen as a way to stop the problems of drug abuse in the workplace. This brings up a very large question. Is drug testing an ethical way to decide employee drug use? It is also very hard to decide if the test is an invasion of employee privacy. “The ethical status of workplace drug testing can be expressed as a question of competing interests, between the employer’s right to use testing to reduce drug related harms and maximize profits, over against the employee’s right to privacy, particularly with regard to drug use which occurs outside the workplace.” (Cranford 2) The rights of the employee have to be considered. The Supreme Court case, Griswold vs. Connecticut outlines the idea that every person is entitled to a privacy zone. However this definition covers privacy and protection from government. To work productively especially when the work may be physical it is nearly impossible to keep one’s privacy. The relationship between employer and employee is based on a contract. The employee provides work for the employer and in return he is paid. If the employee cannot provide services because of problems such as drug abuse, then he is violating the contract. Employers have the right to know many things about their employees.

    Read More

  • Psychology of the Polygraph Test

    406 Words  | 1 Pages

    Employment and interpretations of the polygraph poses as the greatest threat to the testing subject. It is generally agreed upon psychophysiologist's that there is no specific lie response. Basically, no specific action has been identified and allocated as an irrepressible deceptive cue. This seems to be very contradicting to the whole purpose of the polygraph test. The fact that the polygraph is wide open to interpretation crates invalidity from the start.

    Read More

  • The Negative Effects Of Marijuana Smoking

    1129 Words  | 3 Pages

    They are more likely to have low productivity at work; their behavior in the workplace might even change, which may affect their performance. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (2015), a study conducted on employees who use marijuana, and who work in post offices before acceptance of them at work found that more than half of percent work incidents, 85 percent injuries and more than a third of fourth who are absent (par 9). In summary, people under marijuana abuse have problems interacting in society and have problems in their academic and professional performance. Third, the whole family can be affected if members of one family use marijuana. What these people do not realize is that marijuana causes addiction, which almost always leads to more problems.

    Read More

  • Privacy in the Workplace

    2466 Words  | 5 Pages

    25 Privacy Rights Clearinghouse (2002) Employee Monitoring: Is There Privacy in the Workplace? . (6/3/2004)

    Read More

  • Workplace Privacy and Employee Monitoring

    1326 Words  | 3 Pages

    Sometimes there is no middle ground. Monitoring of employees at the workplace, either you side with the employees or you believe management owns the network and should call the shots. The purpose of this paper is to tackle whether monitoring an employee is an invasion of privacy. How new technology has made monitoring of employees by employers possible. The unfairness of computerized monitoring software used to watch employees. The employers desire to ensure that the times they are paying for to be spent in their service is indeed being spent that way. Why not to monitor employees, as well as tips on balancing privacy rights of employees at the job.

    Read More

  • Ethics of Surveillance

    1069 Words  | 3 Pages

    Ultimately, however, surveillance is only a tool that can be used both ethically and unethically. Employee monitoring, consumer data collection, and government surveillance provides great benefits, including improving company efficiency, providing commercial and health values, and protecting the nation from threats. However, when considering the extent to which surveillance can be done, the rights of the people affected must be taken into account. Finding the right balance between these two views is the key to maximizing the benefits of everyone involved.

    Read More

  • The Importance Of Drug Testing

    1269 Words  | 3 Pages

    When employees get hired, they get a drug test due to the fact that the drug testing can prove if the person they are hiring is a good person for their business. For an example “Approximately eighty-one percent of companies in the United States administer drug testing to their employees.” Drug testing also proves that people who passes it are clean and responsible people who the company can trust on doing their job well done and showing overall percentage of the US using drug testing (Chodorow). People who cheat on a drug test and gets a job will later ruin their job of getting into accidents during working and or start a fight with the boss or coworkers unknowingly just because they were high on drugs. That is why companies strive to do drug tests every time they hire an employee now due to the fact that they don’t want to be reliable for an employee who isn’t responsible and trustworthy of their time at their company. Which it will affect the company financially once employees gets hurt on their job. An employee who is not a drug abuser can really benefit a company by not causing trouble for themselves getting hurt in the company and also the business not being reliable for anything that is caused by the employee; who was not responsible. Another example is that reports confirm that 80% of those injured in “serious drug related accidents are innocent coworkers.” And after it began requiring accidents drug

    Read More

  • How Management Information Systems Affect Working Ethics

    1307 Words  | 3 Pages

    For every technological introduction or advancement, there are consequences which come with it. This excludes not those that come with introduction of management information systems in companies. The modern society is entirely depended on information systems. Failure of these systems, today, can be declared as end of humanity. Worse enough is that there is a generational shift whereby future generations will not live without information systems that manage information. However, latest evaluations of the impact of management information systems have proven that there are chances, which are very high, of ethics being abused at the work place. Both the employees and the employers, are guarded by certain cord of ethics which aim at regulating the dignity of everybody at working place; and how far one party can be influential on the other especially on matters pertaining privacy. Profit making goals should not, by any means, overlook the importance of working ethics. This paper endeavors to explore areas of major concern where working ethics are likely to be compromised or have already been compromised at the working place due to institution of management information systems. Nevertheless, this research does not underscore the importance of these systems at the working place. The aim is to expose the negative impacts that might result from misuse of management information systems. These impacts can emanate from either party that forms part of the organization. In this case, mostly, it is either from the employee or the employer.

    Read More

  • Importance Of Privacy In The Workplace

    824 Words  | 2 Pages

    Employee rights are very important in the workplace (Rakoczy, C. n.d.). There are some laws to protect employee rights, such as safe working environment, discrimination and overtime pay rates, to ensure every employee is treated fairly. All employees have the right to work in a safe and healthy workplace. In some industries, they use the high-voltage of electricity, extreme temperature, the high-speed and noisy machines in their workplace which can potentially threaten employee health and safety. A safe and healthy workplace must provide a reasonable daily and weekly job schedule to the employees.

    Read More

More about Drug Testing In The Workplace Essay

Open Document