“The prominence of drug testing in the workplace is expanding throughout the country as more and more companies employ drug tests to take a this critical step to ensure the safety and sanctity of the workplace. Optimally, keeping the workplace clear of drug users would ensure greater safety for the employees as a whole and increase the overall productivity of the company, and cheap, easy and accessible drug tests would make that happen. In spite of all this optimism, it is to be noted that drug testing in the workplace was never accepted by most communities as such in the beginning.

It is true that drug use by the employees would lead to on-the-job accidents, absenteeism and employee theft and that recurrent drug testing in the workplace could potentially discourage the use of drugs altogether. The major gripe of the employees was that it was not just the regular drug users and addicts that were being targeted. Drug testing proved a threat to the employment of people who used recreational drugs occasionally. There were fears of knee jerk dismissals of employees that were highly productive and efficient for the simple reason that they indulged themselves in a rave so long back that they could not even remember. Drug testing was promoted as to being focused on counseling and rehabilitating the employees that were detected, but people perceived it as a threat to their employment prospects.

Drug testing in the workplace was also being widely characterized as a blatant violation of the privacy of an individual. Today, these points of protests are dying a slow death as more and more people realize the importance of weeding out drug abusers from the workplace. Drug testing in the workplace in some form is approved in most states of the US, but the practice is not properly regulated in most cases. The people who are subjected to drug testing in the workplace do not necessarily give their consent, nor is it considered essential. The fact that a so called official could walk in and order you to urinate in a vial without a specified reason compounds the argument that this whole practice is a violation of personal privacy.

Although drug testing the employees was considered impractical just a few months ago due to its high costs, a new wave of practical and cheap drug tests flooding the market has caused a phenomenon of sorts. It is not just current employees who are subjected to drug testing in the workplace; prospective employees and job applicants are also put through a drug test before they start off on the job.

Today the hundreds of laws that exist that govern the drug testing in the workplace, most only aid in furthering the confusion on what is acceptable and what is not. To add to the woes, most of these laws do not help through the way they are stated to convince the employees who are on the receiving end of these laws. Still, the practice continually evolves in its execution to encompass more and more employees bringing the dream of a drug free workplace true – one employee at a time.

This Article is written by Lena Butler, the author of TestCountry Health Information Resources, a longer version of this article is located at The Ethics of Drug Testing in the Workplace and resources from other home health and wellness testing articles are used such as TestCountry Drug Testing Kits.

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Tags: legal, ethics, professional, issues, modern

“Like a high-gloss diamond ring on the hand of a glamorous fashion model, the offices of a legitimate stock brokerage will sparkle. When you visit one you will not feel like you are going up against a card shark in a gambling casino. You will quickly conclude that these are not the premises of a scam artist’s carnival midway joy ride.

They will showcase a good balance of offerings. Many of these will be with Fortune 500 companies and a good cross-section of well-known, prestigious firms listed on the various stock exchanges. And no quick-buck con men to instantly push these either.

They are usually located at easy-to-find addresses on well-known streets, and are housed in well-lighted, nicely-appointed offices. Very subtly you will get the idea that, while money can’t buy happiness, it sure makes misery a lot easier to deal with.

Extensive biographies of their brokers and other operational and management personnel are most often readily available. Some you will meet, with no hint or talk of up the ante, beat the street, sweeten the pot, a sweetheart deal, or it’s a cash cow.

And, their list of references and testimonials from satisfied customers is usually extensive. No chest thumping, self-congratulatory back slapping of themselves as being the “”best in the financial guru business.”"

In checking out their research facilities you will also find an attempt at thoroughness, a striving to provide fact-digging excellence to support their stock and bond selection recommendations.

In sharp contrast. . .

Much like the face on the bar room floor, a boiler room–or bucket shop–will almost always be located on a back street, in a dingy office. It will have many small desks shoved together, or in tiny cubicles, featuring sales personnel–scam artists– working phone banks, reading from scripts in their conversations. They do not provide wide-spread offerings. And, no research facilities open to the public at this version of a Norman Bates motel either. No extensive bios and no variety of testimonials. Their surroundings are much like the settings in a legal thriller movie.

Do not expect to deal with someone inspired by Mother Teresa. Rather, the boiler room boys will glad-handingly pass themselves off to you as the most gifted authorities on the American free enterprise system since the Rockefeller clan’s bankers. Their specialty, along with their operational goals, is quite different from the legitimate stock brokerage. Learning these differences is essential to your financial well being. Failure to do so could be the equivalent of diving into a lake encased in a cement life jacket. The con men’s “”specialties”" includes:

> Classic Pump and Dump operations.
Just another well-known shell game.

> Reverse of the Pump and Dump, known as the Short and Distort. Here the scam artists spread rumors in order to drive the prices of thinly traded stocks down. rather than in the generally accepted direction, up. Then, they buy back the results of their “”short sales”" at a discount and profit. Most often considerably.

> The selling of fictitious foreign exchange investments. Yes, that’s right, stuff grabbed purely out of thin air. The scam artists know how intriguing it is to seduce with language like “”foreign exchange,”" and how many suckers exist out there who will “”sail”" for this exotic-sounding type investment.

> The selling of risky, small cap IPO’s (Initial Public Offerings). Now, not all IPOs are necessarily poor investments. Some–a very few–are actually millionaire makers. But, the odds against are enormous. The only good, proven millionaire-making potential here is for the scam artists who peddle them. The odds do truly smile on the con men in this investment category.

> The selling of “”house stocks,”" shares in shaky companies–usually tiny firms–that are of OTC Bulletin Board or Pink Sheets quality at best.. These are usually blocks of stock that the scam artists have purchased at a sharp discount. Exceptions? Yes, like IPOs. A select few will flower, flourish, and produce bountiful profits. But, the big majority will reward–only–the con man advocate.

> Maybe the worst of all the practices of these people is the holding back on execution of sell orders. And, sometimes outright failure to execute. (They will go to great lengths to avoid the creation of downward pressure on the prices of stocks they are trying to unload.)

Selection can be of equal challenge–in determining reality as opposed to the plot of a legal thriller book. Your failure at being able to distinguish between the two–differentiate between the legitimate and illegitimate operations–could be costly to you. If you were to, somehow, stumble into dealings with the boiler room boys by mistake, you would be like the lumberjack 100 feet up a tree suddenly coming upon a bee hive. Naturally, you can stomp, cajole, complain. You can threaten them with a law suit.. Of course, you can always try taking a bone away from a pit bull, too. You’d probably get equally as far.

The Con Man’s Blog, and first two chapters of Jack Payne’s legal thriller book, Six Hours Past Thursday, are now available online. Both readable for free. You are invited to visit this blog.

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Tags legal, ethics, professional, issues, modern

When people from my grandfather’s generation retired after being with a company for decades they got gold watches. Gold watches no longer exist as far as companies are concerned. Now companies give out pink slips (a.k.a. their walking papers) after 25 years of service. We are living in a different world but it is humorous to me in a way.

Companies no longer have loyalty to those employees that have been loyal to them for years and years of service. When it is clear that companies no longer care about their employees in most cases, it is funny to me when the management of a company gets upset when the employees are no longer loyal to them either. They still expect the employees to be loyal without giving it in return. The same applies for customers. They get upset when a customer of 25 years leaves for a company just because of a cheaper price.

I have said in a previous article that I work for Liberty Mutual Insurance. Since I have gotten in the department I am in now, which is Personal Sales, I have seen some very good employees either forced out the door or forced into taking demotions. The new management comes in and decides they want their own people in place. They either eliminate positions to get some people out the door or they just “performance manage” them out the door.

I am not singling out Liberty Mutual by any means. In fact, I suspect other companies are even worse because Liberty has historically been a very conservative company. Other more aggressive companies are probably laying even more people off, or pushing more people out the doors so they can replace them with “their” people who are younger and cheaper.

I am also not saying that some of the older people do not deserve to move on. Some people I have managed over the last year and a half in this department just do not want to be here and they make it obvious. They continue to do things the way they have always done it. They make little effort to learn new technologies and procedures to keep up with the changing business world and customer’s demands. These people are not the ones I am referring to in this article. I am referring to the people who are on top of their game, still making a significant contribution to the company and they are just forced out because management does not like them.

I think Liberty Mutual is one of the last companies that still has a large population of employees who have worked their whole career for the company. I also think this is not going to be the case five or ten years down the road. It is a shame that business has become so ruthless and does not care about the employees any longer.

Scott Bianchi operates at this site. He writes on a variety of topics.

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Tags: modern, ethics, response, business, morality