In her book, Nickel and Dimed, Ehrenreich maintains that “one of the effects of drug testing is to limit worker mobility - maybe even one of the functions.” Ehrenreich is surely right about the inefficiency of drug testing because, as she may not be aware, recent studies have shown that drug free samples come back dirty 20-30% of the time. This means that often the inaccuracy of drug testing results in the unemployment of many reliable workers, destroying the purpose of drug testing. Like Ehrenreich realizes, it seems unfair to fire employees for something they have no intentions of bringing into the workplace. Although I do not condone drug use, I agree with Ehrenreich's claim that with the amount of time drug testing takes, to then not even be completely accurate, is unfair. A low-wage worker is already at a disadvantage with the inconsistency of the low-wage job market, but with faulty drug testing they can often find themselves out of work for even longer. Additionally, spending precious time and money that they don't have taking the drug tests when they could be interviewing for new jobs. Ehrenreich is able so reveal flaws in the implementation of drug testing.
Read more about drug testing: http://www.inc.com/magazine/19870601/6566.html
Read more about drug testing: http://www.inc.com/magazine/19870601/6566.html