Well, in places where recreational pot use is now legal, are you going to restrict that for employees who use it on their own time? Do you seriously want high employees working in such a technical, legally litigious environment? What about other recreational drug use? Does "legal" somehow make something a "right?"
Private employers should be able to restrict whatever they want.
I would figure in legal pot states, it should probably be handled like alcohol. Don’t come to work high or drunk, and don’t get high or drunk at work or on lunch; i.e. just like now if you have a couple drinks at home before you sleep, you’ll be sober when you wake up, you can’t smoke so much as to leave you high in the morning.
(I’m an ex-tobacco smoker, and I don’t smoke pot myself. I don’t really approve of legal pot smoking, but, if it was voted to be legal by the people of the state, I don’t know that it’s my place to say they can’t. )
“Private employers should be able to restrict whatever they want.”
I agree, but they’re not really free to do so. Is this a private employer?
The first one found a beer bottle in a common box truck used by maintenance, laundry, and dietary, which usually remained unlocked with both the dietary and maintenance supervisions orders. It was a shared back up truck. She decided to write up the maintenance dept working the day before which was myself and another guy. I looked at her and said" you had best not write me up. I seldom drink and when I do I am at home. So help me if I ever apply for employment anywhere and this write up is brought up I will come after you legally and personally with all means legally at my disposal". The issue was promptly dropped. No one had ever stood up to her because she was the administrator. My boss just sat there letting her do this.
Second time about 8 years later another facility I was the evening maintenance mechanic. It was my supper time and I ordered a pizza. I had just finished my meal and my boss who had left two hours earlier and another guy who had also left walked in the shop. My boss finally said I guess I better tell you why I'm here. The Director of Nursing and assistant D.O.N. said that they got on the elevator as you stepped off and said you wreaked of alcohol. He said you don't have to do this because I know it's B.S. and you don't drink but can I smell your breath? I said sure I just ate pizza LOL. His words after checking were "the ****h" and he apologized even though it wasn't his place because he wasn't accusing me. The accuser had went home and did not have the guts to be there.
The director of nursing was 250 pounds overweight and she too wore a bottle of cologne to work. IOW how would she have even smelled alcohol. She was so incompetent she could not take a blood sample. I know that fact personally when I had to be checked for a year due to a puncture exposure from waste. The witch never apologized and she tried the same crap on an orderly later. Who should have been fired? She was never even reprimanded. An employer and supervisor if they make such serious accusations on ones character should be liable if proved false fired themselves. If the owner? The owner should do right by the employee. Only at one job I had required any form of drug testing and I was driving a tractor trailer.
The idea that an employer OWNS you on and off the job was ended in the early 1900's and rightfully so. They are paying you for work. If they want 24/7 control of an employee then they should pay that person 24/7 wages. Fair is fair.
I'm anti union but I am as strongly against employer demands for employees activities off site of their business not during a persons working hours. I even support the right to fire a worker for DUI conviction off the clock if the person uses company vehicles at any time. That said you come to work stoned or drunk it should be cause for dismissal without liability. However if the employee immediately goes and has testing done proving innocence then the employer should be liable.
Firing someone for those issues destroys their work record. A simple dispute or disagreement may get you fired that's fine as is simply an employer firing someone. It's different because it doesn't label you a drunk is what I'm saying.
I believe in coming to work on time, sober, ready to work, do what is asked, and give an honest days work. That said if employers want responsible workers for critical jobs they should be willing to pay reasonable wage for reliable skilled workers. In health care facilities most do not.
I wouldn't work at the facility in the article nor take a family member there. If cutting overhead mean that much too them what other ethical lines will they cross elsewhere?
Try that concept with skin color, ethnicity, religion,...