um she asked if i i guess they went ahead and told you we're supposed to be talking about uh drug testing and what do we think about the policy of most companies and government agencies and of course that's something we're familiar with
right
um
you want to go ahead or
okay go ahead no no go ahead
um personally it was something that uh
i mean i know it presents an emotional issue moral issue people feel like maybe my rights are being violated but i work in human resources
so i work with a lot of folks that um are in accidents or where safety considerations are concerned and
okay yeah
i really feel like that TI's decision to go with drug testing was good you know because i i feel like that you know well all all it takes is one person coming to work under the influence of some narcotic um
truly injure a lot more of our workers
yeah and that's that's funny you're in human resources and i'm in uh health and safety
are you
yes um
i think it's a good idea i i i don't think that they've gone far enough though i think they should they should uh also test for alcohol
well now the thing you you know course they've always said separately that um
you know we have a we have a policy on alcohol course if anybody's under the uh influence or if you have reasonable suspicion then that would result in corrective action for them also and that of course has been in place for years
right but
but it's not specifically tested for that
yeah
yeah
no and and from everything that i can gather you know reading different articles and and just a newspaper in general uh
uh news on the um television
it seems that alcohol is the is the most prevalent um addictive addictive drug
yeah
even though the all the college campuses now the they're saying that the majority of of uh students uh drink
um-hum
and most of them are partying
but yet we don't test for that and i wonder if we don't do that because it is so prevalent and would put probably lose
a quarter of all our population here
how long does alcohol stay in the system i mean like if somebody went out and had some drinks the night before is that going to be there the next day
well they say your system a normal a normal person
should be able to metabolize an ounce of alcohol per hour
okay
and then again it it depends depends on the the bigger you are and you know the more bulk that you have you you can your system can tolerate more alcohol so a large person can probably
um
metabolize maybe a little bit more
uh-huh
than a smaller person
but even that yeah if you go out you know because some people go out maybe
oh you know they drink up a gallon
yeah they do
um
what's what's the uh consensus down there when when uh TI announced that uh the drug testing program did you get a lot of uh animosity against that
we had
i didn't get a lot no not like i expected um
we had you know one or two that were extremely outspoken you know felt like it really violated their rights and and um
and it was not the people that i would have expected um it's uh one of them stands out in my mind as an extremely uh
just a super person in management you know and he's he's very family oriented his family's very close he
he also opposes in the schools like for his kids because he says you know we are a good Christian family we do not do this type of thing it definitely violates our rights and he was very outspoken
yeah
but for the most part people were like well i don't like it uh it's not something i prefer to do but i understand the reasoning and i think part of the attitude is that i think TI went to really great lengths
in communicating and tried to prepare them and and tell them why and you know they didn't just announce it without really any forethought
yes no that's you're right yeah
and uh i i think they don't go far enough uh kind of on a different vein and that is that i think every time we have any type of industrial accident at TI i think somebody ought to be tested immediately
and you know maybe that's just me personally but i i feel like
sure that's an idea too i just uh
you know i i feel like if something happens uh that causes an accident you ought to test the parties involved immediately just just if if nothing else to rule it out
yeah that's a that's a thought um i don't know if you can go
um
depends on the severity of the accident i think you know if you get like up here because we've got heavy industry we've got you know uh uh smelting
plant and we've got a
yeah
we've got a lot of uh metals rolling and slitting and stuff like that so we've got a lot of we are we end up with a lot of uh
hand injuries you know cuts and things like that but perhaps um
yes
if you could weed out those the people that have chronic accidents and test those you know that's a start
uh-huh
and that's a good idea that's a good point
i guess what makes me think of that you know uh you hear them doing that like it's a
or like Amtrak you know if if they have a derailment or or transportation industry it seems like if there's accidents train accidents things like that they test and i think well why not because we do have some large industrial accidents sometimes
yes
uh you know if you have a large acid spill you know well gee maybe you better check this person who's handling all these acids you know i work with a wafer fab so we do a lot with chemicals and acids and
oh okay yeah
uh things like that but i
i do feel like companies are justified and i do feel like i i mean i i guess i hate as an individual that anything like this has ever become necessary in our you know in our nation but but i feel like that it's a good thing to do
well i can see transportation because now you're dealing with or they have the responsibility over a great
number of people
that's true
rather than themselves um
but but thinking on that yeah because we've got we've got truck drivers here that go between plants you know locally
um-hum
and carry material and they carry acids and things too
sure
um i don't know what the what the uh company plant is they went through i guess key personnel first
uh-huh
and then it funneled down to uh the general population
uh-huh
now that started in January of last year
but i wonder if
yeah and i i still haven't been called yet in fact yeah in fact out of our office staff is let's see there's uh four six there's seven of us and there's only one been called
is that right
well i've been lucky i've been called twice
well i
oh oh i i should probably shouldn't be talking to you then right
no i had to test once um when they did the key personnel they test all human resource folks and so i i i was once there and then in the general random sampling last year i was i contacted
okay
and then you just got lucky again right
yeah and that you know i have that same uneasy feeling that other folks have you know i know i i mean i don't drink i don't smoke i don't do nothing
yeah yeah i used to smoke years ago but i don't now
you know but you still walk in there and go gee what if something i ate what if something i've done what if something i've eaten shows up
well it's not only that but i've read different articles and they said even the even the best of labs they come back with erroneous samples and even if they get a a reading i guess they test the same sample again
um-hum
yeah
and they're going to get the same reading suppose they uh you know it's a
do they crucify you right then and there or do they do they go back and retest
well now if the lab is making an error on the sample then when they retest the error should not be there
uh
but they retest the same sample
yeah but the error is on the part of the lab not on the sample in other words if somebody makes a mistake in what they're reading then they're not going to get the same reading the second time
oh i see oh okay
but if they do then you're you're pretty well
if they do then you have you always have the recourse um you know before we do anything we sit down and talk with the person about is there any reason why this should have shown up and a lot of times you know uh
condemned right
to be retested
they'll go oh yeah i was on a prescription for this and they can go get it and bring it in
yeah
you know in which case they're fine obviously those are recorded as negatives if you're under you know legal qualified medical care
um
yeah but i often wondered wondered about that too
if if we're talking marijuana if it's in the system uh then
yeah
yeah you know that would be grounds for uh if it's their second positive it would be grounds for termination if it's their first positive then they're setup with E A P counseling
do you know of any incidences of of of uh erroneous
uh we've had a couple
you know something they they make a mistake the lab made a mistake and it really wasn't nothing
no
no in fact see TI actually sends uh test samples from time to time
uh
oh just to see just just to check on a lab
just to check the validity of the lab yeah
and uh so that's kind of an ongoing test process for the we do for Compucam and you know they don't know which ones are test samples
uh
we must be
yeah we must be doing the same up here too we we're probably send to a different lab than you guys down there
yeah
i don't think so i think the whole company uses Compucam which is over there on the east coast somewhere
oh
and ours actually are mailed there uh they're the
i think the largest and they do a lot of the government contractors they have an excellent excellent rate um
oh yeah
and just uh they
