Amid the implementation of recent federal drug testing
legislation and new proposals by President Bush to increase drug
tests for high school students, the majority of students and
employees at UCLA are bucking the recent trends.
Tenoch Flores, a spokesperson for the American Civil Liberties
Union of Southern California, said the recent atmosphere has become
more conducive to drug testing due to proposals like President
Bush’s $23 million plan to increase testing in high
schools.
Congress also passed the Omnibus Transportation Employee Testing
Act in 1991, mandating that employers test transportation workers
who are in positions to deal with certain safety-sensitive
materials.
In addition, the Supreme Court recently upheld an Oklahoma high
school’s 1998 decision to randomly drug test students in all
extra-curricular activities.
UCLA has somehow managed to stay relatively unfazed despite the
progression of these new testing measures, and union leaders are
not concerned that employee drug testing will become a problem.
“The University of California has never proposed random
drug testing,” said Joe Lindsay, director of the UC Division
of the California Nurses Association, a union that represents 2,200
Westwood employees.
“There are no provisions in our contract on drug testing
… If there is something that occurs where the employer has what
is called “˜reasonable cause,’ there can be drug
testing,” Lindsay said.
He added that reasonable cause is when there is an apparent
problem, not just random suspicion. Lindsay also noted the union
and the university do not always agree on what qualifies as
reasonable cause.
The random drug tests are some of the types of tests that
watch-dog groups like the ACLU and the Drug Policy Alliance
oppose.
Marsha Rosenbaum, an eight-year worker at the Drug Policy
Alliance in San Francisco, said random testing is not effective
because it only tests what someone may have put in their body
(perhaps weeks ago), not their job performance.
She also said drug testing has become a political issue, and is
not about safety or health.
“If it was a health issue ““ which it isn’t,
it’s a political issue ““ then they’d be testing
for alcohol. And no one is testing for alcohol,” she
said.
Rosenbaum’s fears seem to be materializing at high
schools, but not at UCLA.
“I’m not aware that any of the employees are being
tested for drugs,” said Leesa Dawson-Norwood, president of
the Coalition of University Employees, which represents 3,800 UCLA
clerical employees, clerks and administrative assistants as well as
18,000 workers state-wide.
“They seem to be a little more liberal,”
Dawson-Norwood said about UCLA. “I don’t really foresee
drug testing at UCLA being something mandatory.”
UC Spokesman, Paul Schwartz said it is generally not the
University’s policy to randomly test employees, but that they
do it when necessary.
“Random testing is not acceptable generally in California,
including UC campuses and hospitals, where there is a
constitutional right to privacy,” he said in an e-mail.
Schwartz added that the University of California does do some
random testing, but those are mandated by the Department of
Education, the Department of Transportation, and other federal
law.