|
| Thread: No Welfare for Drug Users |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 · «PREV / NEXT» |
|
friendofgunnar
Honorable
Legendary Hero
able to speed up time
|
posted June 09, 2011 05:48 AM |
|
|
JJ:
Quote:
WELFARE DOESN'T BUY HARD DRUGS.
I think that you are rather clueless. At this point I only think so, because I don't have any hard data that says so. I'm not going to go looking for any either, it's elodin's thread and he can post the clicky's if he wants.
If you cut off food stamps, social security payments, child welfare payments, etc...etc... to drug users I think you'd cut payments in at least half. Honestly. If you added in cigarettes and alcohol you'd prolly cut the other half as well.
...
Now there's a thought.
I'm basing these estimates on personal experience btw. I've got no hard data to back them up.
This question was raised several years ago in various parts of the country and the main obstacle to its implementation was that you would have had to shell out a ton of money to hire the people and facilities (and security guards) to do the testing. Nobody was really sure if you'd gain more in savings than you'd lose in the expanded beaurocracy.
That was before they discovered you could discern drug use merely from a hair sample. That was also before DNA testing became cheap and fast. You could probably do the entire job by mail now.
In fact...
I think I just discovered a wedge issue for the repubs. Get on that elodin!
oh wait you are already are lol
Well, as I've said before though, managing them the hard way might prove to be more expensive than managing them the soft way.
edit:
I just realized that I didn't differentiate between "hard" drugs and recreational drugs (marijuana, lsd, ecstasy, etc...). I'm guessing that they would be responsible for a third to a half of the original %50 payment reduction, mostly due to pot.
|
|
TheBaron
Promising
Known Hero
dreamer of dreams
|
|
posted June 09, 2011 06:29 AM |
|
Edited by TheBaron at 06:35, 09 Jun 2011.
|
@mvassilev. Becoming poor is slightly different, especially in the case of lottery winners.
I should not have said "worse" people, I should have said that it negatively effects their emotional and psychological well-being and therefore can contribute to anti-social and self-destructive behaviour... A bit wordy.
What I was talking about is beginning poor. When a person is born into poverty, or a very low income environment (like welfare or a single-parent on minimum wage) you are at a serious disadvantage. This may be due to a number of factors that are endemic to poverty stricken communities - and the effect on development of children can be enormous.
Remember that a person doesn't choose to be born into a certain environment. When a child grows up in a chaotic and unstructured environment and has poor role models, it can have a serious impact on the way the live their lives. Often it results in depression, an inability to manage one's emotions and a feeling that they have no control over their destiny - self-determinism being one of the most valued aspects of American society.
One of the most prominent emotions in children of poverty is fear. Brain research indicates that constant fear has a negative effect on learning. Additionally, a person's physical and emotional well-being are related to their ability to think and learn. Considering that children of poverty may be poorly developed, both physically and emotionally, and that their home environments are often emotionally stressful can explain why they can grown into adults with serious emotional and economic issues.
What I'm trying to say that anyone growing up in this situation, regardless of their genetics, will be at risk of staying in the cycle of poverty. Poverty becomes an institution who's grounds encompass an individual's mind. Once certain mental and emotional traits have developed, it is seriously difficult to change them. That is why poverty is something that needs to be challenged on all levels. It is a vicious spiral that is far from easy to escape without assistance.
EDIT: I have no idea what the guy above me (friendofgunnar) is on about.
|
|
mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted June 09, 2011 06:58 AM |
|
|
TheBaron:
The comparison to lottery winners was to illustrate the point that perhaps even if you give a lot of money to a poor person (money, but nothing else) they could easily become poor again because of whatever negative traits they may have, whether it be emotional issues, low conscientiousness, lack of desire to manage one's money, or something similar.
You're right, the cycle of poverty is real. I've seen the effect poor troubled parents with bad personalities and low intelligence often have on their children - producing the next generation of people with bad personalities and low intelligence. But I think this is more of a case against welfare (at least in cash form) than for it, because if poverty is caused by "internal flaws" (to use a broad term), it's questionable whether giving cash transfers and cash substitutes to the poor helps them permanently improve their condition. That is, if you assume that the "typical aid recipient" is someone who is just a bit short of money after losing a job and not finding a new one quite quickly enough to pay that month's rent, it leads to vastly different conclusions than someone for whom being on welfare is the norm.
____________
Eccentric Opinion
|
|
TheBaron
Promising
Known Hero
dreamer of dreams
|
|
posted June 09, 2011 07:19 AM |
|
Edited by TheBaron at 07:26, 09 Jun 2011.
|
I see your point, however my argument is the flip-side of that. That if we provide enough money where people are living in poverty, they will be empowered to raise themselves above it, or at least their children will be. Considering that Quote:
in recent years, about one in five American children — some 12 to 14 million — have lived in families in which cash income failed to exceed official poverty thresholds. Another one-fifth lived in families whose incomes were no more than twice the poverty threshold. For a small minority of children—4.8% of all children and 15% of children who ever became poor—childhood poverty lasted 10 years or more.
If they were receiving a proper amount of welfare, these children might not have had experienced the full brunt of poverty's trauma, not to mention the stigma that comes with being a poor-person. Something that is highlighted sharply by the more conservative posters here. (I don't think you're necessarily one of them mvassilev)
Quote:
Income poverty is the condition of not having enough income to meet basic needs for food, clothing, and shelter. Because children are dependent on others, they enter or avoid poverty by virtue of their family’s economic circumstances. Children cannot alter family conditions by themselves, at least until they approach adulthood.
Providing the proper support to children through families is essential if you want to stop them from becoming just another poor wastoid. Even the poor wastoids should receive support, and that's why welfare should provide services and incentives to get people back on their feet... or on their feet for the first time ever for that matter! These incentives can come in the form of free tuition, bonuses to low-income earners, increased payments for people undertaking study etc.
People do not like living poorly, most of the time they just don't see a viable alternative.
EDIT: The very first sentence was unclear.
|
|
mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted June 09, 2011 07:32 AM |
|
|
Quote:
If they were receiving a proper amount of welfare, these children might not have had experienced the full brunt of poverty's trauma, not to mention the stigma that comes with being a poor-person.
Certainly, if they were receiving more money, they would have suffered less of the "no money" direct effect of poverty, but they would still have been raised by the same parent(s) in a similar environment, except everyone would have been slightly wealthier. The attitudes of their peers at school would still be the same, the parents/adults in their life would still be the same personality-wise, and so their childhood would be better materially, but in terms of values and personality, not much would be different. Then, when they'd become adults, they still wouldn't escape the cycle of poverty and collect welfare. Children's development is influenced most by the people in their environment, and if the people are the same, the development will not change much.
Quote:
These incentives can come in the form of free tuition, bonuses to low-income earners, increased payments for people undertaking study etc.
These are much better than simple cash transfers, but not all poor people are willing to do what it takes to be able to take advantage of them, as opposed to just taking money they're given. Free tuition is great - but only if you want to be educated. Things like the earned income tax credit are good - but only if you're working at a regular honest job.
____________
Eccentric Opinion
|
|
JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted June 09, 2011 07:34 AM |
|
|
It's strange that the US are the only country in the world that has this drug obsession.
In the UK, a study in 2004 by the Independent Inquiry into Drug Testing at Work found that attempts by employers to force employees to take drug tests could potentially be challenged as a violation of privacy under the Human Rights Act 1998 and Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights. However, this does not apply to industries where drug testing is a matter of personal and public safety or security rather than productivity.
I repeat, personal and public safety and security, yes, productivity no.
In Canada no random drug tests are allowed.
In general, in Europe the underlined passage is part of the law. Drug tests are allowed and can't be refused when it's a matter of safety/security. This is basically a test on ALL psychoactive substances - a test on whether you do your job under the influence of psychoactive substances, endangering who knows what -, not whether you take ILLEGAL substances.
Obviously, this is reasonable.
The US practise is NOT allowed.
So my point of view is the EUROPEAN legal point of view. I repeat, if you want to make the US a police state, go ahead. Drug tests are a massive business in the US. If you want to spend tax money to extort your poor to undergo all kinds of procedures, just to be able to ... what exactly?... by all means do it. You always were the most obsessed country about drugs, and you are not known to be a "social" country either.
Another hysteria in the land of the hypocrites.
EDIT: And something else:
@FriendofGunnar
This:
Quote:
I think that you are rather clueless. At this point I only think so, because I don't have any hard data that says so.
Never call someone clueless and admit then that you only think so because you have no hard data to support that.
That seems to be rather ... clueless.
|
|
TheBaron
Promising
Known Hero
dreamer of dreams
|
|
posted June 09, 2011 08:01 AM |
|
Edited by TheBaron at 08:10, 09 Jun 2011.
|
Quote:
but they would still have been raised by the same parent(s) in a similar environment, except everyone would have been slightly wealthier. The attitudes of their peers at school would still be the same, the parents/adults in their life would still be the same personality-wise, and so their childhood would be better materially, but in terms of values and personality, not much would be different. Then, when they'd become adults, they still wouldn't escape the cycle of poverty and collect welfare. Children's development is influenced most by the people in their environment, and if the people are the same, the development will not change much.
That slightly wealthier might make a big difference, it might make the difference between having a uniform or getting a library membership or eating everyday of the week. I see what you're saying about people's characters being set by a certain age, what I'm saying is that you can still empower people even after they've had a rough development. Difficult yes, impossible no. Then at least you have the potential of the next generation not suffering the way their parents did. It carries on down the line - more proper support empowers people and allows them to properly raise their families, breaking the cycle, less support keeps people exactly where they are. Certainly there are some adults whose upbringing has been so bad that they are severely handicapped in societal integration, but not all of them are. Shouldn't we provide the best chance for those people walking the line to get out of their situation? Not being able to provide for your family is an emotional burden with negative repercussions and that will bring families down. Rarely do people strive under adversity and escape, these people are simultaneously heroes and pariahs, and are the exception not the rule.
Quote:
These are much better than simple cash transfers, but not all poor people are willing to do what it takes to be able to take advantage of them, as opposed to just taking money they're given. Free tuition is great - but only if you want to be educated. Things like the earned income tax credit are good - but only if you're working at a regular honest job.
True, people have to understand the value of something before they will pursue it. Working with kids in juvie has shown me that they just cannot perceive the value of education, as it is just a part of the system, and the system has persecuted them and let them down. So the question is how do you provide someone with the ability to make a rational value judgement? You have to explain it to them in terms they understand. People do not understand the system and how it works for them, rather, they think it oppresses them.
Why would I get a job when I can deal crack and make more money? The thing is that most of the plebs dealing crack don't make more money and they certainly have greater risk. You tell someone, "listen, you keep doing what you're doing and you're going to get shot in the face or stabbed." they understand that, but what's the alternative? Working a check-out? How many of my friends are doing that? What kind of respect will I get? There are too few positive portrayals of these kinds of people. So you have to provide some other incentive to take up honest work, and that doesn't necessarily mean working the most menial task you can imagine (and that is what the poor and uneducated face). Study has shown that helping people do something creative has numerous positive knock-on effects to the rest of their lives. People yearn to be creative and will often do it without much encouragement, and if you can encourage people to use their creativity to be productive WITH CASH (something everyone understands), you stand a chance of providing them with a different world outlook; the world isn't out to &@^$ me. This isn't going to work 100% of the time, but it's infinitely better than 0% percent of them time.
EDIT: In other words, we should provide a decent base welfare and more incentives, encouraging people to join the workforce in a positive way. Punishments and disincentives simply don't work, studies and field experience have shown me this.
|
|
Elodin
Promising
Legendary Hero
Free Thinker
|
|
posted June 09, 2011 08:07 AM |
|
Edited by Elodin at 08:11, 09 Jun 2011.
|
Quote:
So my point of view is the EUROPEAN legal point of view. I repeat, if you want to make the US a police state, go ahead. Drug tests are a massive business in the US. If you want to spend tax money to extort your poor to undergo all kinds of procedures, just to be able to ... what exactly?... by all means do it. You always were the most obsessed country about drugs, and you are not known to be a "social" country either.
Another hysteria in the land of the hypocrites.
Dude, why the America bashing? The US is not "the land of hypocrites." Also, the US is a social country, just not a SOCIALIST nation.
It is not hypocritical of the US to have laws against drug use. Drugs are destructive both to people and to society as a whole. People high on drugs are responsible for a lot of deaths, not only because of their deliberate crimes but because of the negligence with which they behave while stoned--auto accidents, accidents at work, and other such things. Drug users also make poor employees not only because of their proneness to accidents (getting themselves and others hurt or killed) but because of their decreased mental capacity and poor work performance. And of course their increased accident rate has the additional effect of increasing employee insurance costs which reduces the funds available to pay workers AND causes the employer to be more subject to being sued.
As an employer if someone working for me causes an accident that injures another employee or someone else or does shoddy work that causes an injury ****I**** am held liable because he was performing work for my company. If someone tests positive for drugs my policy is "There's the door! Please don't apply to work here again." I do give them a card that lists some places they can get help if they want it.
Yeah, you are all ready to preach about the rights to people to get stoned but what about the rights of employers to protect themselves from drug using employees? I should not have my livelihood affected by morons who use drugs.
Drug use causes a safety issue and other concerns in ANY job. A grocery store worker stoned may not put up signs while mopping and someone slips and the store gets sued because the druggie employee did not put up "wet floor" signs. A convenience store clerk may be too stoned to operate the register properly and costs the store lots of money. Ect, ect. Of course working in certain places like in refineries druggies can cause hundreds of people to die.
Further, the US is far from a police state. We have more liberties than any other nation that has ever existed and we have helped to spread democracy around the world.
|
|
TheBaron
Promising
Known Hero
dreamer of dreams
|
|
posted June 09, 2011 08:34 AM |
|
Edited by TheBaron at 08:39, 09 Jun 2011.
|
Quote:
Also, the US is a social country, just not a SOCIALIST nation.
At the moment, there are no socialist countries in Europe either. So why bring it up?
Quote:
It is not hypocritical of the US to have laws against drug use. Drugs are destructive both to people and to society as a whole. People high on drugs are responsible for a lot of deaths, not only because of their deliberate crimes but because of the negligence with which they behave while stoned--auto accidents, accidents at work, and other such things. Drug users also make poor employees not only because of their proneness to accidents (getting themselves and others hurt or killed) but because of their decreased mental capacity and poor work performance. And of course their increased accident rate has the additional effect of increasing employee insurance costs which reduces the funds available to pay workers AND causes the employer to be more subject to being sued.
It is hypocritical of the US to have laws against drug use. Alcohol is perfectly legal and is responsible for far, far more deaths from negligence, car accidents, liver poisoning, violence etc. We tolerate alcohol because it is socially acceptable, has been used as social lubricant by white people for the last 4000 years and because making it illegal is far worse than having it controlled. People who use drugs recreationally should be treated like those who use alcohol recreationally - they should know the risks and consume responsibly. Anyone who does not should be liable for the effect it has on their life and profession, namely a deterioration of health and wealth. If you knew much about common recreational drugs you would understand that the effects they have on intelligence is probably less than that of alcohol or even using facebook for a few hours a day.
Quote:
Further, the US is far from a police state. We have more liberties than any other nation that has ever existed and we have helped to spread democracy around the world.
This is just a ridiculous thing to say. The US may not be a police state, but saying that you "have more liberties than any other nation that has ever existed" is absurd and shows a certain geopolitical ignorance. I have no problem with people who love their country, but loving your country doesn't make it better than everyone else's. Just like loving my kids doesn't make them better than your kids. If your kids get in trouble at school I don't say to my children, "look how much better you are than those stupid kids" because your kids are your responsibility and because my kids have their own problems. That the US has "helped spread democracy around the world" is both untrue and imperialistic. Many nations have helped themselves become democratic, the US has just forcefully imposed it on a few - and always to their detriment.
EDIT: couple of typos.
|
|
JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted June 09, 2011 08:50 AM |
|
|
Buddy, as an employee, your only concern is - or should be - whether someone is under drugs WHILE WORKING, and here there is no difference between legal and illegal drugs, and that only for safety/security reasons, but not for productivity reasons.
That means, it's completely beside the point what the employess did "sometime within the last 30 days". Important is only what's happening AT WORK. Everything else the employer is not entitled to know.
If he is, serious rights are violated.
Not to mention those tests are not even foolproof.
Drug testing has become a billion dollar industry in the US, and it's typical that the inability to cope with the "drug problem" leads to secondary industries, all of which is costing money, all of which only because use of drugs is criminalized.
If you don't want to legalize dangerous drugs, you can have them in a not allowed/not criminal state, which would have been the only reasonable thing to do: it's criminal to deal with it (except for official places), but it's not criminal to use stuff.
It's the drug policy that creates the problems in the first place, and trying to make it impossible for drug users - addicted or not - to lead a normal life with legal job and income, isn't solving the problem either; that's just driving more people into making illegal money, while at the same time more money is spent on drug testing and detoxing.
|
|
Fauch
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted June 09, 2011 04:05 PM |
|
|
Quote:
They don't contribute to the system by consuming drugs, because drug money is not taxed.
I was more thinking about the big fish who gets all the money in the end. maybe they get some advantages from those criminals?
I read that there are tribes where drugs are used, for shamanic rituals for exemple. I know it is far from our society, but obviously, their opinion on the subject is far different from ours.
and whereas it is said that it is bad to be stoned, in psychiatric hospital, that's often the way they deal with problems, they stone the patients, then release them and tell them to take lots of medicine that will keep them stoned all the time.
|
|
Corribus
Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
|
|
posted June 09, 2011 04:38 PM |
|
|
@JJ
Quote:
Buddy, as an employee, your only concern is - or should be - whether someone is under drugs WHILE WORKING,
Why? Employers use all kinds of metrics and tests to assess whether a potential employee will be reliable, productive and ethical. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to assume that drug-users, even casual drug users, are more likely to be unreliable, less productive and unethical. Maybe it's true that John is never high while he's at work, but isn't it within a company's rights to declare that it's not the physical effects of the drug that are at issue - it's that the company does not want to employ the kind of person who would use marijuana in the first place? Maybe that's fair and maybe it isn't - are drug-users, even casual ones, more likely to steal, dress sloppily, show up late to work, act unprofessionally, etc? I'm generalizing of course but employers always deal with statistical likelihoods like this. Maybe that's unfair to the straight and narrow guy who just happens to like the taste of marijuana smoke, but there it is. I should stress, however, that it may even be in a company's best interest to not hire even a straight and narrow pot user.
A quick example off the top of my head why this might be important - suppose a bank hires some guys who show up to work all the time, perform well and while they do smoke pot at home, they never come to work high. No problem right? Well suppose these guys are at a party and decide to light up some joints there - they're not at work after all, right? Now a lot of people at the party see these guys smoking pot, and word gets around that these guys are major pot heads. The whole town eventually learns this rumor, and whether or not they are "major" pot heads or not is sort of irrelevant. That becomes the perception. And the town sees these guys working at the bank, and they start to wonder what kind of bank hires "major" pot heads to work there? Heck, what kind of bank hires criminals to work there - because, after all, doing drugs is illegal, right? So the reputation of the bank begins to suffer and it loses business to other banks that do NOT hire major pot heads. Like it or not, drug use is stigmatized, at least in American society. Not all drugs, sure - like alcohol to some degree, and yes there is a bit of hypocricy there - but it is what it is.
A bank would probably be less willing to hire a guy with tatoos all over his face and arms for the same reason a bank would probably be less willing to hire a guy who smokes pot, because of what society associates with such behavior, and I think employers should be able to hire whomever they want and require any tests they deem appropriate to determine what applicants are a good fit for their company. I see no problem with an employer requiring applicants or even existing employees to take drug tests because nobody is forcing a person to apply for employment there. There are probably plenty of jobs that don't mind hiring marijuana users, but they may not pay as well or carry as much esteem. Well, I guess that's the price you pay for having a marijuana habit, no?
Of course, this is all tangential to the issue of welfare. The difference is that while we probably could all agree that nobody has a right to a job at a bank, due to the fact that the government is public and ostensibly we all pay into it, some people feel that we are entitled to welfare no matter who we are or what our lifestyle is. I don't think it's possible to directly compare the hiring practices of a private company to welfare - welfare isn't a job, after all, and government check-hander-outers don't have to worry about the same kinds of things a hiring manager at a bank does. So the arguments above don't really hold water for the case of welfare.
I think BlizzardBoy's posts here have been right on the money, really. Emotionally, I don't have a problem with requiring welfare recipients to take a drug test. I think welfare is good for some people but is far too prone to abuse by people who use it as an excuse to live for free off the backs of tax-payers. That said, I agree that denying welfare to drug users is really not solving any specific problems with welfare OR drug-use, and may in fact have unintended consequences. Rather than just making welfare harder to get for certain part of the population, I'd rather see attempts to fix welfare from the bottom up and attempts to change the legal status of certain recreational drugs. Nevertheless, I don't think there's anything legally wrong with testing welfare recipients for drugs, just as I don't think there's anything legally wrong with being required to submit yourself to a body search at an airplane terminal. Receiving welfare, like flying, is not compulsory.
|
|
JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted June 09, 2011 05:05 PM |
|
|
Quote:
@JJ
Quote:
Buddy, as an employee, your only concern is - or should be - whether someone is under drugs WHILE WORKING,
Why? Employers use all kinds of metrics and tests to assess whether a potential employee will be reliable, productive and ethical.
Because they have no right to dissect the private life of their employees. They can of course ASK the potential employee whether he's using recreational drugs in their pastime and if so, which ones, but that's it.
Otherwise, what would keep them from demanding to install a camera in the sleeping room of the employee to check their sexual behaviour since that might give interesting feedback about their gossip potential as well, check all bank accounts, whereabout and after hours activity and so on.
It is simply none of their business.
Let's say you are Harvard student and a couple of societies are interested in getting you. How would they react, when you would ask them for a drug test of all their employees before you decide whether to join them, since you wouldn't want to work with someone who smokes pot on weekends?
It's simply ridiculous, if you ask me, and in my eyes it's a hysterical overreaction that is trampling over worker rights.
|
|
Corribus
Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
|
|
posted June 09, 2011 05:23 PM |
|
|
@JJ
Quote:
Because they have no right to dissect the private life of their employees. They can of course ASK the potential employee whether he's using recreational drugs in their pastime and if so, which ones, but that's it.
What's the difference between verbally and chemically interrogating someone, aside from the ease with which the person being interrogated can lie?
Quote:
Otherwise, what would keep them from demanding to install a camera in the sleeping room of the employee to check their sexual behaviour since that might give interesting feedback about their gossip potential as well, check all bank accounts, whereabout and after hours activity and so on.
I've no problem with a company being allowed to demand this as a requirement for employment. Of course, no employee in their right mind would work at such a company, and the employer would likely be forced to rethink their policy to stay in business.
I think what you're missing is that nobody is required to work at a certain company. If you don't like the policy, find a job elsewhere. That goes for everything a company does. Don't like the food in the cafeteria? Go work elsewhere. Don't like the fact that you are required to wear a tie? Go work elsewhere. Don't like the fact that you have to walk through an x-ray machine in the lobby? Go work elsewhere.
Quote:
How would they react, when you would ask them for a drug test of all their employees before you decide whether to join them, since you wouldn't want to work with someone who smokes pot on weekends?
They'd probably laugh at you and tell you they're not interested. Just as you could, if you choose, laugh at a company that asks you to take a drug test as condition for employment and tell them you're not interested.
Quote:
It's simply ridiculous, if you ask me, and in my eyes it's a hysterical overreaction that is trampling over worker rights.
See, I think the difference is that you see working as a right. I don't. For that matter I see employment as a voluntary exchange of labor for dollars, over which both parties have freedom to impose any conditions they wish to make the exchange. Don't like the terms of exchange? Do business elsewhere. I mean, you don't get hot and bothered when K-mart says if you buy one bottle of shampoo, you get another one free, do you? I can just see you, JJ, standing in the middle of the store screaming red-faced at the manager that it's your RIGHT to purchase only one bottle of shampoo for half the retail price wherever you want to buy it, rather than two for the price of one that's being offered.
"Goddammit, son, it's simply ridiculous, if you ask me, and in my eyes it's a hysterical overreaction that is trampling - TRAMPLING, DAMMIT - on my shopper's rights!!"
|
|
JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted June 09, 2011 06:22 PM |
|
|
You miss the actual point.
First of all, no company has the right to demand things from their prospective employees that are against the law.
STILL, this is the rule. Check the numbers about sexual harrassment that are tolerated - you can always quit, if you don't like it; check overtime demands, that are of course fulfilled - you can always quit, if you don't like it; and so on and so endlessly forth.
Companies and their bosses, supervisors and high-and-mighties are CONSTANTLY breaking the rules. Tax evasion, industry espionage, worker rights, breach of contract, bribery and corruption, lobbyism, fraud, you name it. Additionally, gratification events that involve every recreational vice imaginable, are the rule within the higher company echelons, but these same companies have actually the nerve to make drug tests mandartory when you apply for a job?
Now, you can certainly debate whether they have the right to. I don't think so. Europe, mind you, thinks that the legislation does allow it when important for security safety reasons, but not for productive reasons. But you can certainly debate the whys and hows.
*I* think, it amounts to extortion, because there is a limit of what an employer is actually paying an employee for: they pay only for the work time, not for the private time, and that's why they have no claim on the private life of their employees, and the only reason they do it is, that they sit on the longer side of the lever, as Germans say. They simply have the power, because an employee NEEDS the darn job, but the employer doesn't need the individual employee.
If you really think about it, then democracy is about NUMBERS, not MONEY, and seems somewhat strange that in a democracy all rights are with the money and against the numbers - this is just another example.
For the purpose of this discussion, the government can make mandatory drug tests for welfare recipients, after they start to demand drug tests from all the company brass the government has business dealings with.
|
|
Fauch
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted June 09, 2011 06:28 PM |
|
|
I would just take the free bottle 
Quote:
For that matter I see employment as a voluntary exchange of labor for dollars, over which both parties have freedom to impose any conditions they wish to make the exchange.
yes, in theory. in reality many people can't really afford to impose any conditions. in some places, if you are uneemployed, you can't refuse more than a few jobs, or you lose the financial help.
Quote:
I think welfare is good for some people but is far too prone to abuse by people who use it as an excuse to live for free off the backs of tax-payers.
fundamentally, I would say, it's not where is the biggest abuse. that would be more the system as a whole, since it doesn't leave you much more options to live than to have to earn money. maybe private property more specifically, since everything tends to become a private property, which means that the opportunities to enjoy what our planet has to offer are greatly reduced. unless you can pay the owners of those private properties.
it is far from the subject, but behind the building where I live there is a backyard. normally, you can use it to enter the building by the back-door. but some dude found clever to buy that backyard, whereas he seems to have absolutely no use for it, which means we can't enter the building by the back-door anymore. ok it's a very minor inconvenience. but what about the guy who buys a forest? and suddenly, it becomes illegal for everyone to enjoy what that forest has to offer, unless they pay some price?
|
|
Corribus
Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
|
|
posted June 09, 2011 06:45 PM |
|
|
@JJ
Quote:
First of all, no company has the right to demand things from their prospective employees that are against the law.
Absolutely agreed. (Though, last time I checked, peeing into a cup was legal.)
Quote:
Companies and their bosses, supervisors and high-and-mighties are CONSTANTLY breaking the rules. Tax evasion, industry espionage, worker rights, breach of contract, bribery and corruption, lobbyism, fraud, you name it. Additionally, gratification events that involve every recreational vice imaginable, are the rule within the higher company echelons, but these same companies have actually the nerve to make drug tests mandartory when you apply for a job?
The alleged fact that some, or even most, upper level business managers indulge in vices, or even drugs, is not a logical reason to conclude that drug tests shouldn't be allowed for a job applications.
Hypocritical, maybe, but not much else.
Quote:
Europe, mind you, thinks that the legislation does allow it when important for security safety reasons, but not for productive reasons. But you can certainly debate the whys and hows.
That's fine - laws differ from place to place. Maybe it's illegal in Europe. I'm just speaking of what I believe should be legal or illegal, not what necessarily is so.
Quote:
*I* think, it amounts to extortion, because there is a limit of what an employer is actually paying an employee for:
Well I disagree. Maybe you could convince me this is the case for existing employees, and where drug tests are not part of the contract they signed when they began employment. (I.e., ok Bob, you gotta take a drug test or you're fired.) I'm not a lawyer so I don't know whether it's actually legal to do that in the US. However it really can't be extortion to require someone to take a drug test if they want to qualify to be hired. There's no real threat there (no more than if you fail to fill out their application - you won't get hired), it's completely voluntary, it's not a contract violation, and it applies to everyone who is applying for the job.
Quote:
For the purpose of this discussion, the government can make mandatory drug tests for welfare recipients, after they start to demand drug tests from all the company brass the government has business dealings with.
Sounds fair to me.
|
|
Fauch
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted June 09, 2011 07:32 PM |
|
|
I'm reading "In praise of Idleness" by Bertrand Russell and found a quote that exactly backs up what I said above :
Quote:
Throughout Europe, though not in America, there is a third class of men, more respected than either of the classes of workers. There are men who, through ownership of land, are able to make others pay for the privilege of being allowed to exist and to work. These landowners are idle, and I might therefore be expected to praise them. Unfortunately, their idleness is only rendered possible by the industry of others; indeed their desire for comfortable idleness is historically the source of the whole gospel of work. The last thing they have ever wished is that others should follow their example.
but of course, it's easier to blame people who live with welfare than land owners.
|
|
TheBaron
Promising
Known Hero
dreamer of dreams
|
|
posted June 09, 2011 07:48 PM |
|
Edited by TheBaron at 19:50, 09 Jun 2011.
|
Off the top of my head at 3.30am, the only real problems I could see with drug testing would be using them to hide discriminatory hiring practices (somehow) or exploit current employees under the influence of drugs, legal or otherwise. I can dig what JJ is saying about an individuals right to non-interference, but I can also dig what Corribus says about public image.
Corribus you said that the perception of someone being something is almost more important than their actual participation in said activity, right? Isn't that really just a form of personal discrimination? I just think it's funny to say "kind" of person, eg. "We don't like his kind here." It seems to smack of taste rather than professional assessment. Suppose that it wasn't drugs that you were judging but say... homosexuality? If someone was out at a party and they saw this guy and he was like a "major" pole smoker, and then people outside of the company found out he was a "major" pole smoker and they were talking about to people in the company, so everyone thought "well, maybe we don't want that kind of pole smoking person here."
JJ's libertarian point is one that I would have thought US citizens would be all about - the right to non-interference. So long as it doesn't affect his work or another person's liberties, an individual should be free to do what he wants in his free time regardless of how it appears. I admit that illegal activity is different, because it can cause legal ramifications for an employer, but hey, it was illegal to be homo not so long ago.
I don't even know who I am anyomre. Good night!
EDIt: P.S Pole Smoking
|
|
TheBaron
Promising
Known Hero
dreamer of dreams
|
|
posted June 09, 2011 07:53 PM |
|
|
Quote:
I'm reading "In praise of Idleness" by Bertrand Russell and found a quote that exactly backs up what I said above
It seems I love you fauch. Betrand Russell is the best and you have just quoted him on the HC board. Yeah Boyeee.
|
| |
|
|
