Why workers should oppose drug testing

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SOCIALIST ACTION NOVEMBER 1986 Do we really enjoy the right to privacy in the United States? Not if the Reagan administration's plan for mandatory drug testing of workers comes to pass.

The administration's plans fly in the face of a large body of law, from the Constitution itself (the Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable search and seizure), to hundreds of state and local restrictions on governmental invasion of individuals' rights to privacy.

At a recent public forum sponsored by FRANCISCO Banquet and rally to wind up ylvia Weinstein's campaign fr Board of Supervisors.

Music and dancing.

Sat. evening, Nov. 3435 Army, Rm. 308, S (415) 821-0458 10th anniversary commemoration of the death of Carlos Fonseca, Nicaragua Cultural Center, Nov. 8, 3021 24th St., S.F., Calif Tel. (415) 824-6292 Socialist Action, Joan Braconi, a program coordinator of the Institute for Industrial Relations at the University of California at Berkeley, gave three big reasons why drug testing is an invasion of privacy that workers should not allow:

I) The employer, Braconi stated, can gather "unauthorized information about the medical condition of an employee from the blood or urine sample taken for a drug test, opening a 'chemical window' through which the employer may peer into the private lives of individuals."

The boss can learn if you are pregnant, are genetically predisposed to a particular disease, have AIDS or other disease, and much more.

2) The tests are often inaccurate, Braconi pointed out. For example, the Enzyme Multiplied Immunoassay Test (EMIT), widely used by employers because it is cheap, has a "false positive" rate of 25 percent to 65 percent.

Many factors can contribute to a false positive test. For example: codeine, a common pain-reliever, can "look" like heroin in urinalysis because it metabolizes in the body into morphine like heroin does.

Quinine, a common adulterant in heroin, (but also found in tonic, soft drinks, and over-the-counter medications), found with morphine in urine is a strong indicator of heroin use. So the ingestion of codeine and quinine "looks" like heroin use.

Procaine penicillin, a prescription drug, looks like the procaine used to adulterate cocaine. And some tests for marijuana use are so sensitive they come up positive for a person who may have just been in the same room where someone else was smoking marijuana.

And as if non-white people didn't already have enough problems, drug testing adds this: Melanin, the substance responsible for skin color is also found in the urine and it appears to trigger false positive responses for marijuana use. Blacks, who obviously have more skin color—more melanin—will test positive at a higher rate than white people.

3) Drug tests, according to Braconi, do not test a person's ability to perform their job. Urinalysis tests for past, not current drug use. And the length of time the drug can be detected in the urine can vary with each individual depending on fluid intake, metabolic rate, kidney function, food intake, and other factors.

Even so, the approximate detection time for certain drugs is very revealing: Alcohol—12 hours; heroin—24 hours; barbituates—38 days; cocaine—18-144 hours; marijuana-120-720 hours.

In other words, drug testing gives the employer another weapon to be used against workers, even though the "offense" might have no effect whatsoever on job performance and might have taken place a month earlier.

Why is the government pursuing a policy which so blatantly violates rights to privacy already written into law? First, it allows the bosses, who are pushing for increased productivity by decreasing the workforce, to blame the workers for the accidents caused by safety cutbacks.

Second, drug testing is a handy method for harassing workers the boss would like to get rid of, such as union militants, organizers, radicals, and whistle-blowers.

Cutbacks of the workforce in dangerous

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