City can't test potential librarian for drugs, appeals court rules

[Newsjock]

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

SAN FRANCISCO -- A city can't require all job applicants to be tested for narcotics and must instead show why drug use in a particular job would be dangerous, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled against the city of Woodburn, Ore., which argued it was entitled to maintain a drug-free workplace by requiring job candidates to be screened for drugs and alcohol.

The city was sued by Janet Lanier, whose job offer as a part-time page at the city library was withdrawn in 2004 when she refused a drug and alcohol test. A federal judge ruled the policy unconstitutional and awarded Lanier $12,400 in damages and $44,000 in legal fees, her lawyer said.

The appeals court said Thursday that the judge's ruling went too far, because the city may be able to justify drug-testing of applicants for some jobs. But the court found no basis to test applicants for library positions.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/13/BA1FVJK4K.DTL

[kirby]

1. Its obvious...

If some librarian is fresh off a bong hit and misfiles 'The Joy of Sex' in the children section next to 'My Pet Goat' there could be major embarrassment. Think of the children!

(Plus imagine how confuse Bush would be while looking for his favorite book)

[librechik]

10. Goatse is Bush's favorite Book?

shoulda known

[provis99]

2. test all the CEOs and millionare athletes in the country

Hell, test the whole Bush administration; and give them body cavity searches too, just to be on the safe side.

[DUlover2909]

3. Hair folicle tests for everyone in the White House.

[Mythsaje]

4. Woo-hoo!

That's a good ruling.

[Proletariatprincess]

5. Let's just admit it

Drug testing is only to determine the use of cannibus...anything else can be covered up easily. Drug testing is a for profit industry and it is doing very well, thank you. There is good money to be made violating our privacy....and giving the bosses more power over our lives.
What amazes me is why we have tolerated it for so long...it must be because of the decline in power of Labor and representation of workers.
This is a good decision...but it will probably be overturned by a higher court and the criticism of the 9th Circuit Court will increase.
I'm past outrage at this point. I'm just disgusted.

[Kali]

6. but but but

I just want to be SAFE to watch the teevee and buy crap from china. Why do you hate Amerika?

[kimmylavin]

8. Its true.

Its easier to cover up the use of heroin or cocaine than it is to cover up the use of marijuana.
How it makes sense to test people, I have no idea.

And why is something that you do on your own time somehow grounds for whether or not you can get a job?
Testing should only happen if you've done something that leads a supervisor to believe that you have showed up at work under the influence.
Beyond that, why is it your employer's business?

[99th_Monkey]

7. I'm sending this to all my librarian friends... woo - hoo. ~nt~

[RainDog]

9. She wasn't even hired as a librarian

She was hired as a part-time page. Pages put books on shelves. Most of the time high school students do this job after school (at least in the public libraries around here.)

That's the extent of her job... shelving books.

Such demands are beyond rational.

[Orsino]

11. All hell will break loose.

You're gonna see audiovisuals filed with the periodicals and reference with the fiction. Won't somebody please think of the children?

[High Plains]

12. Test for impairment, not metabolites!

If she can shelve books, I don't care what molecules are in her blood.

[Peace Patriot]

13. I don't even believe in it for dangerous jobs. If a person's clean driving record

or clean safety record is not good enough, to hell with it! It is the frigging most humiliating, de-humanizing, fascist bullshit I have ever heard of.

Your blood is your own.
Your urine is your own.
Your body is your own.
Your responsibilities to others are your own.

No government, and no boss, has any right to violate you like this! They're not just trying to demand urine from library pages, they're spying on the books you check out--and gagging librarians from telling you or anybody else, even their lawyers, about it; they're spying on your bank records, your credit card records, your phone calls, your emails, your internet habits, your purchases, your hotel bills, your rental card agreements, your travels, your private conversations, your sex life, your political affiliations, your business deals--they're spying on everything you do, and they're using the information, first of all, to blackmail or ruin politicians, journalists, whistleblowers and anyone who could expose or curtail them, secondly to set people up, thirdly, to cover up a list of "high crimes and misdemeanors" that is so long it would circle the earth (you wonder why they haven't been impeached? see #1 and #@, above), fourthly, to gather information on all of us for purposes of suppressing dissent and rounding up dissenters for "indefinite detention" without trial, if they have to.

Enough of "Big Brother"! Enough! Your body and your mind are your own! Your private life is your own!

And thank God for the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, so that we are at least reminded, from time to time, what it was like to have Bill of Rights in the Constitution!