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From: abc@BRL.ARPA
Newsgroups: mod.politics
Subject: (none)
Message-ID: <12245540757.68.MCGREW@RED.RUTGERS.EDU>
Date: Thu, 9-Oct-86 20:44:25 EDT
Article-I.D.: RED.12245540757.68.MCGREW
Posted: Thu Oct  9 20:44:25 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 9-Oct-86 22:21:12 EDT
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Approved: poli-sci@red.rutgers.edu


SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA writes:
>
>I'm with Keith on this one.  I see no reason why it would be harder 
>to persuade companies not to do drug testing by organizing employees
>privately to refuse than by getting the government to pass a law
>against it.  
Current events show that "organized" employees are no match for
well-heeled employers in contract negotiations.  The TWA flight
attendants took their pay cut.  The dockworkers in this area face a
$5.00/hour pay cut.  In the face, of all that, I don't see how
employees could exercise any strength in the face of company
unwillingness to negotiate.
>
>
>2.  The government could enumerate unreliable tests, which it would
>ban (so people couldn't not be hired on such weak evidence).  Then
>someone could come up with another unreliable test, which employers
>would use.
>
Why can not the government certify the procedures and/or the labs that
conduct them?  Medical labs, weights and measures, meat processing,
all are examples of areas well-regulated by one level of government or
another.  Is it too much to expect similar certification of the
reliabiliity of drug tests?
>
>3.  The government could enumerate jobs it considers critical enough
>to public safety to allow the employers to do drug testing.  But the
>government knows much less about whose safety is involved than the
>people working in the industry, so why should it make the decision?
>
Right!  That's why we have OSHA.  Industry might "know" what's safe
but they worry only about what will cost them money, not what's best
for the employee!
-- 
Brint Cooper

         ARPA:  abc@brl.arpa
         UUCP:  ...{seismo,unc,decvax,cbosgd}!brl-smoke!abc
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