Hard News: Drugs, testing and workplaces
115 Responses
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Moz, in reply to
it seems like a gross generalisation to me.
You're right. Let me re-phrase: that particular dairy farmer who could only attract the truly desperate and didn't like it is an arsehole. He should offer higher wages and/or better conditions, that's how a market works.
As far as casual work goes, I am very well aware of that having been on both sides of the deal for extended periods (I grew up on an orchard). Even back in the 1980's we had seasonal staff who would come back every year because we paid enough that it was worth them doing that. We had "competing" employers who paid significantly less, for shorter periods and usually worse conditions. They found it much harder to attract reliable staff and used to whine just like the employers quoted about the staff they got. It's not new.
Being a reliable employee is worth a premium, and if that isn't offered the reliable staff will find better jobs if they exist. The bottom-feeders are left with the whip being their only tool and it's a poor tool.
Drug testing shouldn't be necessary, good employers will have decent team leaders who will know when an employee is impaired and deal with that appropriately. It doesn't matter whether the person is sick, emotionally wrecked, injured or drugged (legally or otherwise). If they can't do their job their supervisor should notice and react. This is "how to employ staff for dummies" stuff.
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John Farrell, in reply to
By all means place a blanket ban - but tell the truth about why you do it.
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Farmer Green, in reply to
The points that you make are quite valid, and that is why the share- farming system was prevalent in the dairy industry. The self - employed sharemilker is free to work as long and as hard as he likes.
But solutions do exist where profitability is not limiting.
We farm using a corporate structure, but might not be considered intensive by other players. We have never looked for employees: they come to us.
We operate a nine on / five off roster, so a five day weekend twice per month is available for time off.
The exigencies of the industry have always had to be addressed somehow: nature is an unforgiving mistress. The farm owner has to wear it personally if help is not available. -
Farmer Green, in reply to
That seems fair.
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Farmer Green, in reply to
Yep. If he’ s not an outright arsehole , then he is stupid. He is shooting himself in the foot.
You are right about there being no necessity for drug testing. The supervisor’s job is to look after the employee, whatever the problem. That means the supervisor must be a constant presence whenever an employee is working.It is just basic labour management. The Labour department used to teach this stuff.
The basic rule was: if the employee has not learnt then the supervisor has not taught. It is the supervisor’s fault. -
Farmer Green, in reply to
I see no case law relating to the subject. The moot point is whether or not an employer in a safety sensitive industry, who does not want to drug test his employees, can be held liable if a drug related accident occurs.
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Moz, in reply to
We have never looked for employees: they come to us.
That is common, and it's also why job ads are mostly for shitty jobs.
When I used to "exploit recent immigrants" in a slightly different context it was telling that whenever someone came to me to apologise for having found a better job they had someone else lined up to replace them. Often quite literally... they'd walk in "this is Emmanuel, he just came from Iran, I will train him to do my job"... so I guess you're leaving, then?
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mark taslov, in reply to
Translation: I don’t pay locals enough for them to afford a reliable car each, or even one reliable car between three or four of them. The pay is so low that if anything better turns up they’ll do that.
Exactly, Grant Robertson was right to point out that this is a “diversionary tactic”. But – and this is not knowing the content of his full statement – this is inadequate:
"In his pathetic defence of his Government’s failing immigration policy, the Prime Minister has managed to condemn a generation of Kiwi workers as druggies,” Robertson said.
The Nats will – as a general rule – attempt to mask economic inequality by framing it as a social issue. That’s what they do. The left – at this juncture – are almost guaranteed to scoff the bait – taking the defensive position within the context provided rather than stepping outside of that frame and casting light on the bigger picture: inequality. Too few eyes on the prize.
Robertson defending druggies absolutely works for the Nats.
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Farmer Green, in reply to
R
Robertson defending druggies absolutely works for the Nats.
Take a quick look at the NBR reportage and particularly the comments to see how well Bill's comment is going down.
A certain Farmer Brown made a brief attempt to balance the scales, but no go.
Nobody is going near the evidence from psychology studies where marijuana was found to be a performance- enhancing drug for certain tasks involving hand- eye coordination.
No wonder the cricket batsman found it useful.
The problem is ignorance , and the disinformation being pushed in the schools.
Until we teach that there is use and abuse, kids have no chance of learning the difference.
If it is deemed to be all abuse, then we will continue on the present course. -
Take a quick look at the NBR reportage
If it’s not behind the paywall I might be able to afford that data. ;)
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Winston Peters - two FB posts on it and this release;
Dunne of course just put out a release supporting the Nats immigration policy - can't even go near the topic of Bill's dog whistle!
And the Maori Party are glaring by their absent comment. What's that about, I wonder?
Of all parties they should have piled in on behalf of unemployed youth.
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Tinakori, in reply to
"But your unwavering defense of our PM is admirable."
As is your touching faith that officials or English's office know (or can know) the full story.
The rate of positive tests for beneficiaries is relevant only to the beneficiary population. What about the positives for non-beneficiary applicants and also those beneficiaries and non beneficiaries who avoid jobs where they know they will be tested?
There are plenty of occupations where you are not at risk of drug testing and people will take themselves out of the pool for some jobs simply because they do not want to be included in the tested population. For much of the first decade of my working life I would never have passed a recreational drug test but I was only driving a typewriter. Why NZ Rugby want to add to their burdens by assuming responsibility for their employees' recreational drug use - that is also largely irrelevant to their professional performance - beats me.
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
The rate of positive tests for beneficiaries is relevant only to the beneficiary population. What about the positives for non-beneficiary applicants and also those beneficiaries and non beneficiaries who avoid jobs where they know they will be tested?
So you are going to argue that beneficiaries are not representative of the overall job seeking population.
Furthermore you are going to argue that beneficiaries are less likely to be drug users than the rest of the job seeking population.
You are also arguing that Bill English's staff are so incompetent that they can't get hold of the same data that the online community found in 10 minutes.
I have to say I am impressed by your ability to argue all those thing at once without your head exploding.
You could be right, all your arguments could be true, or Bill English is a liar.
You know I'm going to go with Bill English is a liar because nothing you've said comes remotely close to being anything other than fantastically unlikely.
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Of course, it could be argued that beneficiaries, by definition, have less disposable income than full-time paid employees, and therefore less opportunity for recreational drug use. But (i) that assumption ignores the fact that most paid jobs are not full-time, and are insufficiently remunerated to support regular recreational drug use; and (ii) it’s a disturbingly short step from that assumption to the heartless classist neoconartist Puritanical belief that, as a result, benefit levels should be kept at levels inadequate to support any kind of comfort in life, in order to stop taxpayer money being wasted on “undesirables” who surely would be spending it on drugs if they could.
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Which is to say, any difference between data for beneficiaries, and data for people applying for low-level jobs such as fruit-picking, should not be expected to be huge.
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Farmer Green, in reply to
beneficiaries are not representative
A definition of beneficiary may be helpful to the argument.
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Farmer Green, in reply to
Rugby ...recreational drug use . . ..professional performance
Which for some reason reminded me of the Massey University rugby team known as the Ys, who during the early seventies only ever trained at the pub, discussing moves no doubt, and for whom a joint at half time often produced some inspired performances.
Always entertaining. -
Bart Janssen, in reply to
A definition of beneficiary may be helpful to the argument.
Essentially the term is being used to describe the sample of 8000 job applicants that WINZ (or whatever they are called this week) keeps data on.
It is probably pretty representative of all job applicants. To go from .17% to any significantly large number as to be meaningful would be ... interesting.
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They should start drug testing those National Superannuation beneficiaries. Could be some interesting stats there - many of those over 65 year old baby boomers who grew up in the 1960s and 70s are probably still partying.
(I don't really mean it)
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I roister over half a bottle of wine, occasionally!
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If sanctionable drug detection tests on job seekers produce such sparkling results why not institute sanctionable lie detection tests on politicians?
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linger, in reply to
Polygraphs don't work to an evidential standard, so we'd have to be giving politicians some kind of truth drug ... which would destroy the parallelism :-/
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Not surprisingly, primary industries experienced near-total de-unionisation following the passage of the Employment Contracts Act 1991.
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Moz, in reply to
If sanctionable drug detection tests on job seekers produce such sparkling results why not institute sanctionable
... drug tests on politicians? If you can't pick fruit while stoned, legislating while high should be utterly beyond the pale. Although that might explain some of the f*ups we see coming from that house.
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