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From: jon@seismo.CSS.GOV@gaia.UUCP
Newsgroups: mod.politics
Subject: Re: pre-employment drug tests
Message-ID: <12267765881.17.MCGREW@RED.RUTGERS.EDU>
Date: Fri, 2-Jan-87 14:30:40 EST
Article-I.D.: RED.12267765881.17.MCGREW
Posted: Fri Jan  2 14:30:40 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 2-Jan-87 18:50:24 EST
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Hank.Walker@GAUSS.ECE.CMU.EDU writes:
> If I buy a car, is it okay for me to have a mechanic inspect it 
> first? If I buy a house, can a contractor look it over?

This, in my mind, implies that you are treating people the same way
you treat cars and houses -- as property.  A car has no privacy to be
invaded.  When you buy a house, you have done just that: *bought* it.
You own it.  I suppose that if you regard an employee as another
object to be owned, then your point of view makes a little bit of
sense.  I don't know about you, but I am not owned by anybody but me,
and the details of what I do with my body are my own business.

> These
> conditions may not affect the performance of the person on the job,
> but they may mean that I can't amortize my investment.

While you're at it, you had better check up on the state of their
marriage; you never know what might happen during a divorce.  I guess
you really should make sure they don't do anything crazy like mountain
climbing or bicycle-riding -- people die that way all the time, and
you may not be able to "amortize" your investment.  Check their
driving record -- speeding kills too.  Make sure they don't have any
enemies.  This sort of list can go on forever, and I really don't see
where you draw the line between this sort of snooping and drug
testing.

The local Anheuser-Busch (sp?) brewery is instituting drug tests.
Given the business that they are in, can you really imagine that drugs
concern them?
-- 
Jonathan Corbet
{hao | nbires}!gaia!jon

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