Over the last few years, the drug testing landscape in the workplace has changed drastically. With the legalization of marijuana in some states and the decriminalization of drugs in others, it can be challenging to build a...more
Maritime operators should diligently enact and follow policies and procedures on personal leave and drinking ashore. In a recent decision from the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana, the court refused to...more
The Alberta Court of Queen's Bench has recently issued a decision that provides guidance regarding the contractual right of a non-unionized employer to implement randomized drug and alcohol testing. ...more
The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) announced on March 13, 2020, that, due to the COVID-19 outbreak, exemptions for some regulations were warranted for certain motor...more
Test your knowledge! How much do you know about alcohol use and abuse in the workplace? Take our quiz and find out! Sure, everyone is giving all the attention to marijuana these days, but the laws surrounding alcohol are, if...more
2020 is on the horizon, and employers must be ready to comply with many new developments in the world of workplace drug and alcohol testing. Here is a summary of significant laws that will take effect in 2020 (and some that...more
What better way to start the Labor Day weekend than with a drug test? Er, I meant a quiz about drug testing. Assume that the following are all situations in which drug testing is not legally mandated by some federal law,...more
Synopsis: Effective July 1, 2018, Iowa employers may lower their standard for alcohol tests and consider taking action against an employee with a blood alcohol concentration as low as .02....more
Beginning July 1, 2018, private employers in Iowa may take action based on an employee’s alcohol test result of .02 grams of alcohol per two hundred ten liters of breath. The lower standard was enacted under a 2018 amendment...more
Workplace drug and alcohol testing in West Virginia traditionally has been scrutinized by the courts and has been available to employers in limited circumstances. That will change dramatically this summer when the state’s...more
Many thousands of employers implement post-accident drug and alcohol testing policies to promote workplace safety, as part of accident investigation efforts and in the hope of reducing workplace accidents and workers’...more
When counseling a new client, I normally ask if they have a written drug and alcohol testing policy. If the company is fairly large, it normally has such a policy. I do, however, occasionally receive a response from smaller...more
Everybody agrees that drug and alcohol use in the workplace is a serious safety issue. And when it comes to safety, unions understandably press employers to manage any issues and hold them accountable in doing so. But, when...more
Here is a common workplace scenario: An employee tests positive for use of alcohol following a random screening. As a condition of continuing employment, the employee consults with the company’s EAP, which informs the...more
The National Labor Relations Board ("Board"), in its July 31, 2014 decision in Ralph's Grocery Co., 361 NLRB No. 9 (2014), ruled that so-called "Weingarten rights" – the general right of a unionized employee to request union...more