A Justified Infringement on Privacy? - A Qualitative Study on the Private Labour Market Actors’ Perceptions of Workplace Drug Testing

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to get an understanding of the perceptions and experiences of drug tests as a measure to prevent substance use at workplaces. The focus was to explore the perceptions of different actors within the private labour market concerning the integrity-sensitive aspects that are connected to drug test at work places and to understand perceptions on drug prevention, positive test results and drug rehabilitation in relation to drug tests. The empirical data was based on six semi-structured interviews with private labour market actors working within the union, human resources and occupational health services. The interview material was subsequently analysed using a thematic analysis and discussed with the support from a theoretical framework based on social control and the concepts of panopticon, prevention, stigmatization and rehabilitation. The findings show that the workplace drug test and drug policy were perceived to form a drug-preventive strategy. However, the interview participants differ in their opinions about its efficiency. All participants emphasised the illicit substance use in Western parts of Sweden as a social problem, which entails safety and economical risks at the workplace. The interview participants had diverse notions of the privacy aspects and it often depended upon its relation to other circumstances such as the urine sampling process, the management of information or the safety reasons motivating workplace drug testing. The workplace drug testing is also considered as rehabilitative as it is presumed to act deterrent to people who use illicit drugs or are about to initiate drug use. But according to the interview participants, workplace drug testing can lead to stigmatization if the practices are not performed with dignity towards the employee. This thesis points out the unintended and intended consequences of workplace drug testing policy, practice, private law enforcement and the act of defining risky and criminal behaviours, all in relation to individual privacy.