FEBRUARY 2007: COVER STORY |
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 "We continue to get a wave of positive tests… We’ve kind of tried the tough-love approach so far. But our system today is enabling people on drugs." — Jon McAmis, Roseburg Forest Products |
In reality, most Oregon employers oscillate between those
extremes, coaxing employees into treatment, taking a second
chance on older, skilled people, ignoring the whiff of
marijuana or some glazed eyeballs now and then. They even
pursue pricey drug testing for new applicants to send a message
that they are entering a “drug-free” workplace
— something few Oregon companies unequivocally can
claim.
Stories of slowed expansion are becoming more common as
businesses struggle to find workers who can pass a drug test
— Georgia Pacific in Burns and Barrett Business Services
in Newport are two examples. Equally alarming may be the
companies large and small around the state that say, openly or
in hushed tones, that they would never test their current
workforce because their business would be stopped cold.
“If we were talking about a virus, we’d have to
call it an epidemic,” says Dan Harmon, Hoffman
Construction’s executive VP and general counsel.
THE FIX FOR DRUGS IN THE WORKPLACE, proposed by an Oregon
Business Plan panel a year ago and backed by a current
legislative work group chaired by Harmon, is to massively
increase the number of businesses that have a comprehensive
drug policy. That policy, in line with federal workplace
standards, would include regular drug testing, addiction
treatment and thorough enforcement and promotion by supervisors
and company executives. Harmon’s group also is proposing
incentives for businesses to adopt a drug policy; other
legislators plan a bill requiring drug testing for people
receiving unemployment payments to keep the pipeline for new
workers clean.
Experts in the legislative group suggest that Oregon’s
workplace drug problem could be solved if a strong majority of
businesses and the state send the message that one must be
drug-free to enter the workforce.
 "I’ve empathized with workers on marijuana coming off a weekend. We’ve had some damn good employees who have used marijuana and functioned well in their jobs." — John Murphy, Murphy Plywood |
“If all employers had the same standards, we’d have
a lot smaller problem with drugs,” says Jerry Gjesvold,
employment services manager for Eugene-based drug treatment
provider Serenity Lane and a member of the legislative work
group.
Currently, only 13% of businesses statewide have anything like
a best-practices policy in place. The Oregon Business Council
and state health officials have suggested boosting the portion
of Oregon companies with drug-free policies to 75%; the
business plan has begun a pilot program with local chambers to
get employers around the state on board.
Statewide advocates acknowledge their targets are ambitious;
the policy they are pushing also has gotten mixed reviews from
companies such as RFP, which has had a similar policy in place
for almost 20 years.
“We continue to get a wave of positive tests and
failures on people who go through treatments as part of their
last-chance agreement,” McAmis says. “We’ve
tried the tough-love approach. But our system today is enabling
people on drugs.”
And whatever promise there is in the cumulative effect of many
employers vowing to be drug free, individual employers have to
find their way out of their current fix: How do they start
cleaning up their workforce and not lose it at the same
time?
BOTH HOFFMAN CONSTRUCTION AND RFP PUT THEIR POLICIES TO WORK
in the late 1980s as the federal government attempted to crack
down on drug use at its contractors. This was the period when
the Exxon Valdez ran
aground in Alaska, and its captain was charged, but acquitted,
with being drunk. A Conrail freight train also rammed into an
Amtrak passenger train in Maryland, after which the Conrail
conductor admitted smoking marijuana. Rigorous testing began in
transportation industries. Subsequent laws required any company
doing business with the federal government to enforce a
drug-free workplace; employers risked a five-year moratorium on
federal contracts if drugs were involved in a company accident.
OSHA laws also have required that workers be
“unimpaired” at work.
Hoffman’s Dan Harmon says his company’s
pre-employment drug testing failure rate — initially as
high as 18% — has gone down since the late 1980s. But
company policies have failed to halt drug use at the company.
After employees and subcontractors attend treatment and fail a
second drug test, they’re permanently banned from
Hoffman’s job sites. In 20 years, the company has banned
nearly 1,000 workers; in the last 10 years alone, it has had
20,000 failed drug tests (pre-employment screens included) and
250 accidents attributed to drug and alcohol use.
Hoffman has been involved in some of the more high-profile
developments in Oregon — the latest is Portland’s
South Waterfront — but Harmon worries that the
company’s future may be endangered by its shrunken worker
pool.
“If it continues to shrink it’s going to be a
barrier to us and others looking to expand,” Harmon
says.
In RFP’s mills, where about half of 4,000 Oregon
employees belong to a union, a “last- chance”
program similar to Hoffman’s has been protected in
contract bargaining since 1989. McAmis says bluntly that drug
users have viewed the last chance not as a desperate measure
but as a “get-out-of-jail-free card” to avoid being
fired. Lumber and Sawmill Workers union shop president Cindy
Black agrees that the policy isn’t working — nor is
random testing, which fails to sweep through enough of
Roseburg’s workers in a given year. “There are a
lot of people here on drugs that just haven’t been caught
yet,” Black says, noting that her unit at RFP’s
Riddle plant has never been randomly tested in the 17 years
she’s been there. “We’re fortunate we
haven’t had some fatalities.”
 "There are a lot of people here on drugs that just haven’t been caught yet. We’re fortunate we haven’t had some fatalities." — Cindy Black, Union shop president, Roseburg Forest Products |
The recent methamphetamine crisis only has compounded drug
problems in Oregon workplaces. Though the rate of positive
tests for meth in the workplace has leveled off (something drug
experts attribute to new Oregon laws barring the cold medicine
— and raw meth ingredient — pseudoephedrine), for
several years it surpassed marijuana as the most common drug in
employee tests. And heavy users’ sore-covered faces,
rotting teeth and erratic, aggressive behavior have been hard
for employers to ignore.
“Fifteen or 20 years ago you could use drugs for a while
and it wouldn’t become that problematic,” say
Gjesvold. “But meth is a different story. It’s
nasty and it moves quickly and creates some dangerous
situations.”
IN DOUGLAS COUNTY, WHERE EMPLOYERS’ recent complaints
about drug use have been higher than the rest of Oregon,
RFP’s fellow wood products companies have taken divergent
approaches to addressing the issue.
At C&D Lumber, a sawmill and planing mill in Riddle,
general manager Brad Hatley has a zero-tolerance program.
“If you fail a drug test, you’re gone,” says
Hatley, who says he will let employees elect treatment if they
come forward before a test and admit they would fail. The
failure rate in pre-employment testing has fallen to about 1%
over the past two years.
Percentage of Oregonians using illegal drugs in the past year |
|
| Marijuana and hashish |
14.0% 415,000 |
|
|
|
| Pain relievers |
6.0% 29,000 |
|
|
|
| Hallucinogens |
2.5% 74,000 |
|
|
|
| Cocaine |
2.0% 60,000 |
|
|
|
| Methamphetamine |
1.1% 31,000 |
|
|
|
| Ecstasy |
1.0% 29,000 |
|
|
|
| SOURCE: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration study 2003-2004 | |
C&D might be considered a success story, except that Mimi
Bushman, who runs the state-funded Workdrugfree advocacy
program, worries that a harsh policy simply sends an addict to
the end of the unemployment line, where he has no opportunity
for treatment. “It just recycles the problem and
it’s one of the reasons you have those high
pre-employment positive drug tests elsewhere,” Bushman
says.
In the northern part of Douglas County is Murphy Plywood,
which until recently ran a mill in Sutherlin. Several Douglas
County residents mentioned the company when asked about some of
the more relaxed drug policies in the area. When his
company’s reputation was presented to him, Murphy Plywood
president John Murphy understandably bristled. “For every
person who thinks we’re lax, I’ll show you 10 who
say we have a clean workplace,” Murphy says.
Murphy, however, described his own policy toward those who
test positive once for marijuana as “lenient.” That
worker is allowed to return to the workplace as soon as he or
she can produce a clean urinalysis. (The worker is let go if he
can’t get clean in 30 days.) Murphy says that person also
will likely be taken off jobs involving moving machinery and
put under close supervison. If other substances such as meth or
cocaine are detected in a drug test, a worker is sent to a
treatment program before returning to the job. Any positive
drug test, regardless of the substance, puts Murphy workers
into a last-chance agreement, and John Murphy says they are let
go on subsequent offenses.
Speaking from his current office in Eugene (the Sutherlin mill
burned down in July 2005 after a fire broke out in a dryer
motor), Murphy says he and his human resources staff arrived at
their approach to marijuana because “I’ve
empathized with workers on marijuana coming off a
weekend.” The policy also allowed him to
accommodate
employees
who have had a good work record. “We’ve had some
damn good employees who have used marijuana and functioned well
in their jobs,” he says. Greg Gassner, Murphy’s HR
director, adds, “If it’s a post-accident test and
it’s a low level [of marijuana] and it hasn’t
affected his performance, we give him a chance to get
clean.”
IT WOULD BE HARD FOR MANY EMPLOYERS IN OREGON to argue with
Murphy’s policy. Jerry Gjesvold says at least one large
employer he knows — a well-known name but Gjesvold asked
it be kept confidential — has said it would never
randomly drug-test because it would sweep up too many good
workers.
Some small-business owners, already averse to the cost and
hassle of a drug program, say they don’t want to deal
with the consequences of a scientific drug test. In Brookings,
Lesa Cooper runs a 12-person concrete construction company with
her husband, Gary, and has had a miserable time dealing with
drug addicts.
She’s been physically and verbally attacked when
confronting suspected meth addicts, withstood several robbery
attempts and frequently absent workers, and even moved her
family to a remote location to avoid incidents with former
employees.
With less-troublesome drug users who are skilled, show up
semi-regularly and don’t show violent behavior,
she’s more lenient. “I don’t want to lose the
guys I like to work with who every now and then screw
up,” says Cooper. “Some [other contractor] will
pick them up in a heartbeat. You’d like to do everything
the way you’re supposed to. But it’s become
‘If it isn’t happening on my jobsite, I’m
going to look the other way.’ And you do put up with some
lost time.”
Percentage of workers using illegal drugs in the past month |
Percentage using illegal drugs other than marijuana |
|
| 9.5% |
Oregon |
3.7% |
|
|
||
| 8.1% |
United States |
3.6% |
|
|
||
| SOURCE: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration study 2003-2004 | ||
Gjesvold says leaving room to negotiate with drug users is
“selfish” of employers, but he understands why they
do it. “They’re hard up,” he says. “The
higher the skill level, the tougher people are to
find.”
Gjesvold says it may take another accident on the level of
Exxon Valdez to spur
the business community and state leaders into widespread action
on drugs. He notes that it wasn’t until meth had ravaged
the general population that legislators and the governor passed
the law banning pseudoephedrine. “You’re going to
see some bizarre things and employers are going to suffer in
terms of ROI,” says Gjesvold. “I hope I’m
wrong.”
Oregon’s legislative work group is hoping some carrots
for
businesses may swing the majority toward addressing drug
abuse in their workplaces.
They are proposing that em-ployers with a comprehensive drug
policy get immunity from lawsuits brought by employees fired
for drug use, and that employers with approved policies get a
discount on workers’ comp rates. A similar workers’
comp program in the state of Washington was associated with a
reduction in workplace accidents between 1994 and 2000.
The Oregon group also has discussed setting up a fund to pay
for drug treatment of employees at small businesses. A 2005
“mental health parity” bill calls on insurance
providers to cover in-patient drug treatment. But just 60% of
Oregon businesses provide health insurance; for the uninsured,
in-patient treatment starts at around $5,000.
The work group would also like to rein in Oregon’s
medical marijuana law by limiting the prevalence of possession
cards and the legal amounts cardholders can possess. There are
now more than 19,000 marijuana possession cards in Oregon for
users and caretakers, which allows users to possess up to 24
ounces of marijuana.
That puts employers trying to reduce drug use at a further
disadvantage, as does the fact that Oregon courts still
haven’t decided if companies need to accommodate workers
with a medical marijuana prescription.
What may be hopeful for employers tearing their hair out over
the drug issue is the emerging advocacy of employees in some
workplaces. It was an employee survey two years ago that led
Brad Hatley to strengthen the drug policy at C&D Lumber.
“They were telling me that our policy had too many
loopholes and it needed more teeth,” he says.
At Roseburg Forest Products, shop president Cindy Black
appears ready to lead a similar effort. She says she’d be
open to a stricter policy: One failed drug test and
you’re out. “It’s a drug-free workplace and
it’s clearly stated,” she says. “New people
coming on shouldn’t have that second chance. The company
would be protecting itself, for sure, but they’d also be
protecting us. The last thing I want to do is pull someone out
of a piece of machinery.”
Some employers admit they need all the help they can get. Says
RFP’s Jon McAmis: “We’re really at a loss as
to what to do next.”
If you have comments about this aricle, e-mail us at
feedback@oregonbusiness.com.
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