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From: KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
Newsgroups: mod.politics
Subject: Drug tests
Message-ID: <12241312880.60.MCGREW@RED.RUTGERS.EDU>
Date: Tue, 23-Sep-86 17:39:59 EDT
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Posted: Tue Sep 23 17:39:59 1986
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    From:     James B Hofmann <hofmann@AMSAA.ARPA>

    ... Will you then allow employers to put cameras in people's
    apartments?  Is that next?

  If the employee agreed to it.  Which is unlikely.  And if he does,
so what?  Similarly an employee could insist on installing a camera in
his employer's apartment as a condition of his continued employment.
  Unlikely?  Yes.  So is your scenario.  Why do you assume that
employers have such enormous power over people?  Why do you assume
that government doesn't have such power, or that if it does it would
never abuse it?
  Suppose your employer told you he suspected you of stealing company
property and storing it at home, and told you that your one chance for
continued employment is to allow him to immediately thoroughly search
your apartment?  You might object to working for someone who doesn't
trust you, and quit on the spot.  Or you might value the job
sufficiently that you are willing to allow the search to prove to your
employer's satisfaction that you are no thief.  It is entirely up to
you.
  But under the laws you advocate, it would be ILLEGAL for him to
suggest such a search.  He would have no recourse but to fire you.
You might beg him to search your apartment to prove your innocence,
but since such a search would be construed as a condition to continued
employment, he would have to refuse, and fire you.
  *I* think that these drug tests are a bad idea.  But I admit that I
might be wrong.  I don't think it should be up to me to decide what an
employer and employee should do that doesn't affect me.  If drug tests
are irrational, then employers who insist on them are at a competitive
disadvantage.  If a sufficient number of employees simply refuse to
take any drug tests, then employers who insist on them are at a
competitive disadvantage.  They will continue only if they are useful
and most employees don't mind them.

    In your view, the employees would "gang up" on the employer.
    Obviously, you don't understand corporate culture.

  The feeling is mutual.  You seem to feel that employers employ
people as a favor to them, and suffer no consequences when employees
chose to leave.  You seem to think that employers can impose the most
draconian rules on their employees and the employees will consent, and
that any who leave will be unable to find work elsewhere and will be
quickly replaced with other, more subservient, employees.  Obviously,
you don't understand corporate culture, or even the rudiments of
economics.

    Requiring drug testing before getting a job would lead to
    a brain drain in this country as people head towards free-er
    regions.

  What regions are those?  Employers within this country who DON'T
require such tests, perhaps?  Seems to me that undermines your whole
argument.
  Or are you assuming that EVERY employer would require such tests?
That is only possible if the government required them to require them.
I think I have made it clear that I totally oppose anything like that.

                                                              ...Keith

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