According to the recent Australian Industrial Relations Commission’s (AIRC) rulings*, workplace drug and alcohol testing is highly recommended for the following reasons:
- Your workplace is involved in a high risk industry or activities. For example, a high risk industry or activity where safety is of critical importance includes:
o Aviation
o Construction
o Law enforcement
o Mining
o Traffic control
o Transport.
o Scaffolding
o Driving heavy transport vehicles.
- Your workplace deems it reasonable and necessary to fulfill their OHS compliancy and ‘duty of care’.
Employers are required by law to provide a safe workplace for their staff, visitors and the community at large. As the business owner or manager, it’s your legal duty to satisfactorily identify risks and implement appropriate risk management measures and systems. Essentially, if your workplace is exposed to critical safety concerns, experiences frequent workplace accidents or consistent low performance that might be attributed to drug and alcohol misuse, your workplace would have sufficient grounds to consider a workplace drug and alcohol testing regime. However, before this initiative is undertaken, workplace legal advice or OHS consultation is recommended as certain legal criteria and protocol must be met to authorise a workplace drug test.
The first preliminary step involved to determine whether a workplace drug and alcohol testing program is necessary for your workplace, is by identifying whether a “culture of risk” exists in your workplace (i.e. whether employee alcohol and drug misuse affects work duties and performance). This is usually achieved through a comprehensive risk assessment conducted by an in-house qualified OHS specialist. Alternatively, you can enlist the services of an external OHS professional such as Mediscreen. Offering a nation-wide comprehensive service, Mediscreen can greatly assist you with designing a program that complies with all relevant national and state occupational health and safety requirements in Australia (including CASA/ DAMP legislation).
So, if you’ve identified breaches of workplace conduct leading to impaired, dangerous or low performance (which in turn causes or plausibly causes an accident), a drug and alcohol testing program is not only permitted but highly recommended. In fact, many unions now concur with the AIRC on the necessity of ‘reasonable’ workplace drug and alcohol testing programs.
For more information about our cost competitive onsite testing program, speak to our professional Mediscreen Team today on 1300 79 70 40.
* To read information on the cited AIRC rulings, see the Shell Refining (Australia) Pty Ltd case here or Caltex Australia Ltd case here .
