Pubdate: Wed, 15 Jan 2014
Source: Telegram, The (CN NF)
Section: Front Page
Copyright: 2014 The Telegram
Contact:  http://www.thetelegram.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/303
Author: Daniel MacEachern

CITY PLANS NEW POLICY ON ALCOHOL, DRUG ABUSE

A new draft policy on drug and alcohol abuse for the City of St.
John's takes its cue from oil sands companies.

Kevin Breen, the city's director of human resources, presented the
draft policy to the city's finance and administration standing
committee meeting Tuesday afternoon, saying the new policy is the
result of requests from managers looking for more guidance on how to
handle employees who abuse drugs and alcohol in the workplace.

"We do encounter it," said Breen. "But a lot of supervisors are not
really confident in knowing what to do in these situations." So this
gets into really good detail, and there will be a full training
program with this policy as well."

Breen said sessions would be planned for city management staff to
train them to understand the signs and symptoms of impairment, and
what constitutes reasonable cause to refer someone to testing.

"The real hallmark of this policy is the testing component," he said.
"It's not something we've gone down the road before. Traditionally,
you basically go on a narrative from the supervisor. If someone
suspects someone of drinking or smoking drugs, you get a statement
from them. This would remove any of that uncertainty, and they would
be referred for a test through our provider, and it's a yes or no situation."

Breen said the policy is not just for management, but employees who
are seeking treatment. He added that the city's draft policy
piggybacks on policies established by companies working in Alberta's
oil sands.

"They've got this stuff down to a science. A lot of municipalities
have policies like these, but they're not nearly as detailed," he said.

Presented to council Neil Martin, city clerk and deputy city manager
of corporate services, said the city's current policy is a "loose
amalgam" of past practices.

"What we have presented to council in draft form is a consolidated,
comprehensive policy that deals with the identification of the
problem, how to address the problem, how to train our supervisors to
recognize the problem, but more importantly what it does is focus on
drug and alcohol abuse as a situation that we as an employer need to
address along with the employee," said Martin. He added that the
city's approach will focus on employee assistance, not necessarily
employee termination.

It's still early stages for the draft policy, noted Breen, who said he
doesn't expect the policy to be submitted to council for formal
approval before the spring or early summer.

"We still have feedback to get from the unions, and we're also going
to be sending it out to all our management staff as well to get some
feedback," he said.  
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D