Coming Clean: Workplace Drug and Alcohol Testing

By Planet Work (ILO)

Workplace drug testing is a relatively new phenomenon worldwide, migrating through multinationals from industrialized to developing countries.

Some prescribe it as an effective way of managing substance abuse at work. But does it really? The issues range from questions of privacy to social responsibility and the role and potential responsibility of employers and private enterprise. Also at issue is whether test results are truly indicative of substance abuse on the job, or if they chiefly show activities undertaken outside the workplace.. Planet Work looks at the impact of substance abuse at work, the costs of testing, whether or not to test, the virtues or otherwise of a zero-tolerance culture, false positives, working days lost and sums up the ILO's Code of Practice.

(World of Work; no 57, September 2006)