5. National agreements on drugs and alcohol

Unions have developed general guidance and templates to help union reps with drugs and alcohol policies (see Chapter 4). There are also a number of specific national and sector agreements that have been negotiated across a range of industries. These indicate some of the particular issues that union reps should watch out for.

The Labour Research Department (LRD) has received some positive examples of national policies negotiated by unions with a range of well-known employers, which include significant safeguards to protect workers.

Corus

The Community union has made significant progress with steel giant Corus on the issue of alcohol and drug abuse. A newly-negotiated policy is a particularly important breakthrough, given the safety-critical nature of much of the work done by the firm.

The tone of the policy is framed around support and understanding, with disciplinary procedures applied flexibly rather than rigidly. There is also an extensive training programme with handouts and graphic materials. Testing is restricted after the pre-employment medical to incidents of concern and those on the rehabilitation programme. In particular, both institutional and peer support is offered, as well as redeployment from safety critical areas on a temporary basis while undergoing rehabilitation.

The following extracts are from the Corus steel firm’s policy, Alcohol and substance misuse applicable within the UK businesses, which was negotiated with unions:

Rob Sneddon, head of safety at Community, told LRD about the roll out of a new policy within different parts of Corus. In the main business, which employs around 8,500 workers, all employees will attend a two-hour awareness session on drugs and alcohol.

At the same time, around one thousand managers from human resources, occupational health and line management — as well as leading trade union officials, will attend a one day session. The firm has 200 trained “champions” to offer peer support.

Community has negotiated funding from Corus and the Welsh Assembly for a project employing three counsellors to work between the sites and the local Drug Action Teams in the area to provide further support.

Sneddon added: “This is a three year project and the results should be interesting. A similar roll-out is taking place in other businesses within the company.”

Royal Mail

During 2008, the CWU communication workers’ union and Unite general union (Communication Managers Association section) agreed an updated policy with Royal Mail after extensive consultation. The new policy includes a number of safeguards and formulations that other union reps can adapt to their own circumstances:

CWU health and safety officer, Dave Joyce, said: “We are satisfied that the new policy and guidance now being deployed is in the best interests of our members.” The policy states that “acknowledging that there is a problem and accepting help does not put a person’s job at risk.” It addresses underlying problems such as stress or depression and there is help available via the Royal Mail occupational health service — including an in-house counselling service. The policy is subject to a 12-month review.

Joyce said: “The primary aim of the new policy is to help, support and rehabilitate our people who have alcohol and drugs problems, free from a blame culture and Royal Mail is committed within the policy to working proactively with the union and our health and safety reps to ensure a safe and healthy working environment and workforce.”

In developing the policy, the CWU consulted the charity Alcohol Concern and the HSE for their advice, input and guidance. Alcohol Concern agrees that alcohol problems in the workplace should be viewed as a health issue and the alcohol policy should be explicitly dealt with in an organisation’s procedures. This encourages staff with problems to come forward and lessens the likelihood of collusion by colleagues not wishing to “get someone into trouble”. (See Further information for contacting Alcohol Concern).

Dave Joyce concludes:

“Members must not be impaired by drugs or alcohol when at work and the safety of our members and others always comes first. The union wants members to be safe and healthy and treated fairly and we can’t achieve this unless we take seriously the problems that alcohol and drugs cause, offering confidential support for employees who may have a problem with drink or drugs. We want the best help and support for alcohol and drug users with strengthened support activity on the ground, avoiding rhetorical and inflammatory language, making harm reduction the goal of the policy and practice and aiming to reduce the harm to both the individual and colleagues with decisions and actions being informed by appropriate investigation, evidence, not anecdote, opinion or prejudice.”

Shopworkers and distribution

Shopworkers’ union Usdaw has negotiated drug and alcohol policies with a number of employers, including the big supermarket chains. Usdaw’s health and safety officer, Doug Russell, told the Labour Research Department that many of these agreements do include testing (usually pre-employment screening and “for-cause” testing — i.e. where an employer suspects drug or alcohol use at a particular time or for a particular incident) but none involve random testing.

The drug-testing company Grendonstar often provides the policy and the testing service and the union has challenged the quality of these over the years.

“Testing is obviously controversial. The testing houses exaggerate the effects of drugs and alcohol on performance to justify their business — but most impartial research such as by the HSE and by the Rowntree Trust shows that testing is of limited value and should only be seen as a minor part of an overall policy”, Russell said. He added that: “In most workplaces the policies appear to work well. Testing is very rarely done, a few people who have some form of dependency have been helped.”

Examples of where there had been issues related to testing included a member who worked for a cleaning contractor at a distribution centre who was being threatened with dismissal having tested positive for opiates. But this was overturned when it turned out that the laboratory had not used the correct cut-off standard for the test and the low level of opiate detected could be explained by the member using an over-the-counter pain relief medicine.

In another case, a distribution company considered trying to use the “road side impairment” test that the police use as a more objective measure of when someone might be under the influence of illicit drugs. They gave this up because managers didn’t feel confident in asking the worker to stand on one leg/touch their nose with their eyes closed and so on. In the end the company decided to have the choice of breathalysing someone suspected of drinking and no testing for other drugs.