The Employment Relations Authority (ERA) has found that Carter Holt Harvey Limited (CHH) was not just justified in making more than 200 sawmill employees undergo drug testing after two cannabis plants were found on company land.
According to the ERA judgement more than 76 members of the engineering, printing and manufacturing union (EPMU) who work at the the Eves Valley Sawmill site owned by CHH, made a claim that they were unjustifiably disadvantaged in their employment by being compelled to submit to drug testing in breach of the respondents drug and alcohol policy.
The 76 workers claimed CHH breached the drug and alcohol free workplace policy and procedures by requiring all employees to submit to the drug testing, and also breached its duty of good faith by misusing those policies and procedures in order to compel them to submit to the testing.
Many of the employees felt they were under suspicion and it was also commonly felt that the urine sample collection procedure was invasive to their privacy.
On March 7, 2013 CHH site manager Daryn Adams ordered all employees to undergo a reasonable-cause drug test after cannabis plants were found growing in the grounds outside the sawmill buildings.
Urine testing began in the following days after the plants were found but a union delegate phoned EPMU organiser George Hollingworth, who then phoned Adams to tell him that the union believed the testing would be in breach of the drug and alcohol policy, as it was neither random nor testing for reasonable cause.
After Adams eventually called a halt to the testing, a meeting with Hollingworth and union delegates took place, where they told Adams the union did not believe the situation fell within the reasonable-cause category, and that he didn’t have the right to test all of the staff in relation to the discovery of the plants.
Although one employee was found to have a non-negative test, there was no suggestion that he had planted the marijuana plants says the authority.
CHH told the authority it was justified in testing the employees in this manner because it felt that it was reasonable to assume the person who planted the marijuana worked at the sawmill.
However CHH conceded the testing was not in strict accordance with its policy and procedures but said to the authority that it was motivated “by a strong desire to to protect its employees, and so the testing was justified.”
The authority disagreed and says that reasonable-cause testing in the collective agreement required evidence to suspect an individual employee was affected by drugs before deciding tom test. The authority says it applies to individual employees and not a whole shift or workforce.
Employment relations authority member Christine Hickey upheld the complaints, but she directed the parties to mediation to set the amount of compensation.
The applicants had wanted $2500 each and $20,000 as a penalty for breaches of good faith, but Hickey says as the relationship between employers and employees was ongoing, it was more suitable for the two parties to make efforts to agree on the amount of compensation payable, rather that for her to make orders.
