SUMMARY

This bill amends the laws regarding substance abuse testing of employees in the following ways.

1. It continues the discretion of the employer to require random or arbitrary testing of employees but makes the following changes:

A. If the employer has 50 or more employees and the employer chooses to require random or arbitrary substance abuse testing, then all employees of the employer who are not covered under a collective bargaining agreement must be subject to the random or arbitrary testing. Currently, under the Maine Revised Statutes, Title 26, section 684, subsection 3, only those employees who have bargained for random or arbitrary substance abuse testing or those employees who work "in a position the nature of which would create an unreasonable threat to the health or safety of the public or the employee's co-workers if the employee were under the influence of a substance of abuse" are subject to random or arbitrary testing. This provision remains true for those employers with fewer than 50 employees;

B. For those employers with 50 or more employees, the random or arbitrary substance abuse testing policy is established by a committee consisting of at least 10 employees selected by the employer. The employees must be from a cross-section of the positions employed by the employer. The committee must have at least one member who is a person in the medical profession, such as a physician or nurse. If there is no such person employed by the employer, then the employer must obtain the services of a person in the medical profession to serve on the committee;

C. The committee establishes the frequency of testing and the number of employees to be tested;

D. The Department of Labor chooses the employees to be tested from a list of all employees provided by the employer. The list provided to the department does not contain any information that would allow the department to identify a specific employee;

E. The policy must be submitted to the Department of Labor and approved by the department prior to implementation; and