Fair Work Australia rejects urine testing again and sets other important guidelines

 

In parallel with the Industry Guidelines trial, two of the local government unions, the USU and APESMA (the Federal organisation of the LGEA) were involved with other electricity industry unions in a significant test case at Endeavour Energy. The case was heard before Senior Deputy President Hamberger in Fair Work Australia.

The Senior Deputy President had already established precedents about the importance of a random testing regime in industries that provide significant amounts of dangerous work (like electricity and mining, for example) using a testing method which actually detected impairment at the time the testing was carried out. Electricity is one of those industries where the unions agree with the concept of random testing because everywhere you go there is 1 million volts waiting to zap you.

This meant the obvious choice needed to be saliva testing, rather than urine testing, which fails to detect impairment at the time of the test but gives you a great idea of what people been doing in their own time over preceding weeks.

The Endeavour Energy case set the following precedents which will be fed into the review of the Industry Guidelines next week:

  1. any PCA/alcohol testing should use the Motor Traffic Act differing prescriptions,
     
  2. oral testing is preferred to urine testing for a variety of privacy and accuracy reasons and,
     
  3. there should be no obligation on employees to disclose prescription medication prior to any testing.

These three principles will confront Upper Hunter on the method of testing, Coffs Harbour in particular on the "one size fits all" PCA testing and quite a few councils believing it is appropriate for employees to disclose their medication regardless of privacy. Any testing regime that requires people being medicated for depression, hormonal changes, gender reallocation, sexually transmittable diseases or other treatments which are none of the business of the employer, needs to be resisted at every opportunity.

It’s in the Minister’s office but nothing’s happening. It has been:

since the Government and the Minister were appointed on 5 April 2023. We are still waiting for the legislative changes required.

Copyright © 2024 The Development and Environmental Professionals' Association (depa). All Rights Reserved. Webdesign: Dot Online