Company Policies on Job Applicants Vary : Drug Test Shows Positive--Now What?

A job applicant submits a urine sample and it tests positive for drugs. How will the prospective employer react?

At Company A, the applicant is told he will not be hired and he cannot reapply for two years.

At Company B, the applicant is told he will not be hired--but he can reapply in six months.

At Company C, the applicant is told he will be hired--if he pledges to stay off drugs and agrees to be retested every few months.

These are actual responses from three different companies. Each has had to wrestle with the same issue, and each has come up with a different answer.

Drug testing programs are studded with difficult questions like this, as companies that opt for drug screening soon find out. And while many of the ground rules vary little from company to company, there are important variations.

Job applicants, for example, are almost always told in advance that passing a drug test is a condition of getting the job.

If an applicant flunks the drug test and challenges the outcome, a few companies will allow the urine sample to be retested at a laboratory other than the one the company uses.

But most companies will turn the applicant away.

The rejected applicant will be allowed to reapply in a year at most companies, in six months at some, in two years at others. In such cases, hirings that finally result are sometimes conditional.

At Unocal, a Los Angeles-based oil company, an applicant who flunks a drug test can reapply six months later and be hired if he can pass the test that time. But once he is on the job, the company would probably “spot test” him periodically to assure that he remains drug free, spokesman Arthur Bentley said.

At the Los Angeles Times, the nearly 200 applicants who have failed the newspaper’s drug test since it began last year may not reapply for two years, according to Dr. Wayne Buck, medical director. “We think it takes 18 months to get free of the abuse,” he said. “Sobriety is a spiritual, emotional and physical state.”

But the two-year rule is under review, and there have been exceptions to it, including one applicant to the editorial staff who tested positive for marijuana. The applicant admitted smoking the drug at a party, but denied being a regular user. Editors rechecked references, which were uniformly excellent, and then, satisfied, hired the applicant anyway.

“You don’t give felony sentences for misdemeanors,” said William F. Thomas, Times editor and executive vice president. He said he thought it would be foolish to rule out a well-qualified applicant who had tested barely positive for marijuana when the person had a good work record, strong references and no history of drug abuse. “Of course, if the test showed heavy use, they’d be out. And, by and large, if the test showed positive for a heavy drug (cocaine or heroin), we won’t hire.”

A number of other companies said they make no exceptions. At PSA, for example, spokeswoman Margie Craig said the airline will not hire someone who has failed a drug test. She said PSA views the program as “extremely successful. It allows us to weed out potential problems and all that’s connected with it.”

Alfred Klein, a Los Angeles management attorney, said the drug policies of most companies do not give managers sufficient flexibility.

“The notion that everybody who tests positive is out is overkill,” Klein said. “That will deprive most employers of valuable employees.”

Klein said he advises employers to design their program so that a potentially good employee could be retested, for example, within two weeks after failing a drug test.

If the subsequent test is negative and the company wants to hire the person but still has concerns, the company can protect itself by requiring the employee to be periodically tested during a probationary period, Klein said.

This is the approach occasionally used by Kidder, Peabody & Co., the New York-based investment firm, according to Ed Weihemayer, its director of human resources. “We have in certain cases allowed certain persons who tested positive to join the firm on condition that they stop (using the drug in question), be continually retested in the first six months and state that they’re not a regular user,” Weihemayer said.

Such flexibility, however, worries many drug consultants because of the danger that company managers will end up treating different applicants differently, exposing the company to lawsuits. The same concern applies to those workers already employed.

Companies that carry flexibility to an extreme and make no attempt to follow an established procedure are the most worrisome to consultants.

Said Ted Schramm, who runs a San Diego company that trouble-shoots corporate drug programs: “The primary problem is the company thinking it can get away with differentiating the treatment of their employees when they test positive. Rather than have some criteria established for handling an employee that tests positive, they decide subjectively whether they want to retain them. If they like them, they keep them. If they don’t like them, they terminate them.”

Cocaine Suspected

Schramm said he recently talked to a corporate official who said two of his employees had tested positive for cocaine. “He said that one of the guys convinced him the test was wrong, so he kept him. He said they knew the other guy was a ‘dirt bag’ so they fired him.” Schramm said such decision-making is indefensible.

What about the employee who refuses to take a drug test? Some companies will fire such an individual for insubordination. Other firms, particularly those with union contracts, may move more cautiously. Some labor arbitrators have ruled that refusal to take a drug test does not constitute cause to fire an employee.

On the other hand, Jay Roth, a Los Angeles labor lawyer, said, “In general, a refusal to take a test in face of a direct order to do so will probably result in severe discipline.” This could include a suspension from work.

The issue is likely to be clouded by uncertainty until the disposition of court cases currently pending. Even then, an employee’s right to refuse to take a test may depend on whether he is covered by a union contract, and the particular circumstances in which the test is demanded.

Some companies began drug testing because it seemed an answer to a visible problem. Southern Pacific, for example, said it was experiencing too many accidents. But in most cases, testing programs seem to arise out of a general fear that drugs are endangering a company.

Mobil Corp.’s marketing and refining division began drug testing last year, and spokeswoman Carol Edwards noted: “We did not have an upsurge in incidents that suggested drug or alcohol abuse. We were responding to an increased concern throughout industry. Other companies told us they were having problems. We assumed we were not unique.”

Some companies have made a conscious decision not to test for drugs, including Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Hewlett Packard. Officials at all three said they see no reason to do so. “We don’t do drug testing,” Wells Fargo spokeswoman Betty Lattie said. “We have a lot of stress counseling going on. If there’s a performance problem, you begin to look at what the cause of the problem is.”

Are companies with drug programs getting the results they want? Most say yes. At the very least, the programs are discouraging drug users from applying for jobs at these companies, company spokesmen say. The proof, they say, is in the decline in the number of job applicants testing positive for drugs.

Since drug testing began, for example, the percentage of positive test results among job seekers has declined from 21% to 15% at Lockheed, from 28% to 15% at Southern California Edison, from 11% to 9% at PG & E and, finally, from 13% to 9% at The Times, according to the companies.

Whether drug testing is having a broader effect on operations at each company--for example, increasing productivity and reducing accidents and absenteeism--is a largely unanswered question, according to an informal Times survey of 25 major corporations and government agencies in California and elsewhere.

Little Hard Evidence

Such benefits are regularly cited by proponents of drug programs, but few of those surveyed were able to come up with any hard evidence--the exceptions being the Pentagon; two California corporations, Southern Pacific Co. and Pacific Gas & Electric Co.; and Georgia Power Co.

Most employers said they are satisfied with drug testing as a deterrent and saw no reason to collect productivity or safety data. One example is Unocal. “We feel if we can avoid one accident by not hiring a drug user, the program is well worth it,” said Bentley, the Unocal spokesman.

On the other hand, Southern California Edison spokesman John Hunt said the company is “in the process of trying to quantify what our testing program has meant to productivity.”

At Southern Pacific, which began drug testing two years ago, the number of rail accidents in which “human factors” played a part has dropped by more than 60% and lost-time injuries have declined by 24%, according to Robert Taggart, the firm’s vice president for public affairs.

The railroad reduced its work force by about 10% in that time and its freight volume has declined, both of which could have contributed to the reduction. But Taggart is confident that drug testing played a major role, causing railroad workers to refrain from drug use for fear they would be found out in a test.

The railroad tests train crews for the presence of drugs or alcohol after every such accident, and also employs random testing. While 22% of employees tested in August, 1984, registered positive, only 6% did so last August.

“It’s dropped steadily every month,” Taggart said. “A drug-testing program in and of itself is a deterrent.”

PG & E, which does no spot testing of workers, has experienced a 25% reduction in accidents and a 40% decrease in serious injuries. It attributes the drop to its pre-employment drug screening program that prevents drug users from entering its work force, a spokeswoman said. The San Francisco-based utility also uses undercover investigators to identify drug users.

Georgia Power Co, which is embroiled in a worker suit over its drug-test program, credits the program for increased safety at the power plant that is the site of the controversy. The company said the accident rate has dropped regularly since screening was instituted, from 5.4 for every 200,000 man-hours in 1981 to .49 last year.

The Pentagon has statistics to show its program reduced accidents and absenteeism, improved productivity and significantly cut drug use.

Navy Testing

When, for example, the Navy instituted drug testing in 1981, drug use in the under-25 age group was estimated at 47%. By 1984, that figure was down to 10%, and last year to 4%, according to a spokesman.

The Army reported 10% positive drug tests when it began testing in 1982. Last year, that figure was down by half, a spokesman said.

The Air Force, which reported a 4.9% positive rate in 1985, does not have reliable year-to-year comparisons.

Despite the statistics from companies like Southern Pacific and PG & E, some involved in drug programs remain skeptical that a cause-and-effect relationship can be shown between drug testing and, for example, fewer accidents.

Schramm, the San Diego consultant, declared: “You can’t conclude that because you started a urinalysis program that productivity increases. Anybody that says they have a reduction in accidents or health care costs, they’re whistling Dixie. That’s not to say they haven’t had a reduction in accidents, but you can’t say it’s attributable to drug testing. We tried to do it with one company. The statistics were not worth treating seriously.”

Virtually every company and agency interviewed by The Times that had a testing program said it also had an employee assistance program. These programs help workers with drug, alcohol and other personal problems.

“Most companies don’t see drug testing as a way to fire employees willy-nilly,” said Noel Dunnivant, president of a North Carolina market research firm that has been studying corporate drug-testing programs.

At PG & E, for example, spokeswoman Martha Eickhoff said her company’s assistance program allows employees to get help on a confidential basis. Supervisors who notice a lapse in an employee’s performance or frequent absenteeism are encouraged to first talk to the employee and then refer the individual to the assistance program if warranted.

“Supervisors have been given training on this,” Eickhoff said. “We have a whole video program on this to show them (supervisors) the correct skills to use.”

Most employers said that if an employee failed a drug test, he would be asked to participate in a rehabilitation program.

At the Federal Aviation Administration, spokesman John Leyden said an employee of that agency, such as an air traffic controller, would lose his job if there was “a second offense” after the person had gone through a rehabilitation program.

Many private employers, though, said they would give an employee at least two chances at rehabilitation before terminating him.

At The Times, for example, no firm rule has yet been set, according to James W. Duncan, director of employee relations. But Duncan said a worker “can have at least two rehabilitation sessions without losing his job.”

The Times employee assistance program currently has 52 people undergoing rehabilitation for “chemical abuse” problems, including alcoholism, according to Buck, the medical director. That is about half of 1% of the company’s work force.