Please educate me on this...drug testing for Boston firefighters.

[Raven]

Two Boston firefighters were recently killed while fighting a fire. One tested positive for excess alcohol and the other for cocaine. The Mayor proposed manditory random drug testing for the Fire Department. The Firefighters' Union said "fine, we'll negotiate it." Labor experts say that it will cost the City money to random manditory drug testing into the union labor contract.

Why should this have to be negotiated and paid for? Don't Boston citizens have the right to expect that their public safety personnel will be drug and alcohol free when they are on the job?

[dsc]

1. They should have cared enough to negotiate it into the contract then

since they didn't, now they have to give something else up to get it.

[Raven]

2. That's my point...why should this be a subject for collective bargaining?

[dsc]

3. because it is a term of employment

which is what contracts cover. I also think random drug tests are wasteful and bad ideas but that is a different issue.

[OzarkDem]

7. No its a public safety issue

not something to be negotiated.

[H2O Man]

4. The union will

negotiate in several areas, including how intrusive the word "random" is, and the consequences of failing a test. There is a difference between someone having a drink on their own time versus someone who shows up to work intoxicated or hung-over. A union also might consider a person who smokes pot a couple times a year, on their own time, to be different from the person who snorts a line of white powder to steady their nerves before completing a task, though a urine test and an employer do not always see the difference.

It costs money for the simple reason that drug-testing includes both the materials and the people needed to complete the testing.

[jimshoes]

5. Let's start at the top

Since the prez is basically an employee of the United States, do him first, then everyone on his staff and in his admin. Then Congress, etc.... Equal protection and all that. If it is used in one case then it should be used in all cases.

P.S.(I am against drug testing at all btw)

[NotGivingUp]

6. sounds fair to me! n/t

[WGS]

8. So you don't mind

then if someone, say an aircraft mechanic, is working on an aircraft you are going to fly in while he/she is stoned?

[jimshoes]

9. Would you exempt the prez in

the testing procedure since he holds the very life of the country in his hands? If you insist on doing it for some then do it for all.