Pubdate: Tue, 07 Feb 2012
Source: Dallas Morning News (TX)
Copyright: 2012 The Dallas Morning News, Inc.
Contact: http://www.dallasnews.com/cgi-bin/lettertoed.cgi
Website: http://www.dallasnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/117
Author: Bill Hammond
Note: Bill Hammond is president and CEO of the Texas Association of Business
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/testing.htm (Drug Testing)

DRUG TEST NEEDED TO GET BENEFITS

Unemployed Should Always Be Ready to Return to Work,

Employers are the folks who pay for 100 percent of unemployment 
insurance costs, and most agree that when someone loses a job, 
through no fault of his or her own, there should be a safety net.

While providing that safety net is a covenant that employers make 
with employees, there is also a covenant made by people who get those 
unemployment benefits. Those people should be ready and available for 
work when it is offered. Someone who is on drugs is neither ready nor 
available.

The majority of employers in America require a drug test before 
hiring someone (57 percent, according to a September 2011study by the 
Society for Human Resource Management). If you cannot pass a drug 
test, you are saying to an employer, "You can't hire me." People who 
fail a drug test simply aren't keeping up their end of the bargain to 
be ready and available for work.

It's unfair to employers to be asked to subsidize someone's drug 
habit, which is exactly what they are doing by paying for someone's 
unemployment benefits, and then the recipient is turning around and 
using those benefits to buy illegal drugs.

The federal government should give the state the power to require 
drug testing as a prerequisite for receiving unemployment benefits. 
I'm not talking about forcing those already unemployed to pay for 
those tests, nor am I talking about the state of Texas paying for 
them. We can use a small portion of the unemployment fund, paid for 
by employers, to finance the testing. Not only would that eliminate 
the people who aren't ready and available for work, it will also tell 
employers that those who pass the test are ready immediately and are drug free.

When a person goes to apply for a new job, he or she could provide a 
card for the prospective employer that they have passed a drug test 
to be eligible for unemployment benefits. In many cases, that would 
move the prospective employee to the top of the list. It would 
greatly increase the chance that they will be hired. To say people 
receiving unemployment benefits shouldn't be drug-tested is missing 
the point. Chances are they will be drug-tested when they are offered 
a job anyway. It would mean an employer wouldn't have to go through 
the process of extending an offer, have that offer accepted, and then 
have to administer a drug test, which is the way the law works today.

It has been argued that people like me, who support drug testing to 
qualify for unemployment benefits, are somehow trying to diminish 
public support for the system as a whole. That couldn't be further 
from the truth. I think the system will gain public support if people 
know that the folks receiving benefits are actually employable. This 
might also make it possible for people to find jobs more quickly, 
especially as the economy continues to recover. That would 
financially strengthen the unemployment system as a whole.

Drug abuse is a very real problem for employers today. Abuse of 
drugs, both illegal drugs and legal prescription drugs, cause hours 
of lost productivity and high absenteeism.

Every effort the federal and state government can make to reduce the 
abuse of drugs is one that will greatly benefit all employers and the 
state and country as a whole.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom