ASSOCIATIONINSIGHT
Portable Sanitation Association International News
BIWEEKLY EDITION NOVEMBER 25, 2020
Page 4 Continued on page 9
Legal Cannabis—HR Policy Issues…continued from page 3
For example, some states (Maine, for one) prohibit employers from firing workers for the first failed drug test.
Employees must instead be given the chance to complete a rehab program. Find out if a law like this applies in
your state and how that affects your hiring and firing decisions.
As mentioned earlier, your company may also be subject to
laws that apply to the customers you serve. Portable sanitation
companies with accounts covering federal installations such as
military bases and nuclear power plants, areas of high security
such as airports and schools, or sites of hazardous work such as
mines, are often required to meet the same legal requirements as
their customers in order to do business with them.
Educate yourself about all of this before you create or update
your policy. Whenever possible, consult an employment law
attorney in your state. She or he probably already has such a
policy on file in "boiler plate" format that you can customize. If
there is a trucking association specific to your state, that group
may also be a terrific resource for a sample boiler plate policy that you can use as the basis for your own.
Existing Portable Sanitation Company Policies Vary
The PSAI reached out to company leaders in several states with varying degrees of legal marijuana use and
asked to review their drug and alcohol policies. While some did not respond to our request, we ultimately had
information from eight companies of varying sizes operating in
around 25 states to compare. About half of the firms are subject
to FMCSRs and half are operating smaller trucks in a single state.
Here's what we found:
• Policies and their content vary. One larger company that
operates in multiple states where medical marijuana is legal
has only a 52-word statement. It says driving while impaired
may subject an employee to disciplinary action. A smaller
company operating in a single state has a six-page,1,700-
word policy replete with definitions and step-by-step
procedures to document compliance with the requirements
of their mining customers. Two very large companies subject
to FMCSRs have lengthy policies (12–14 pages) that closely
mirror information published by the federal government.
Shown at right, the DOT Handbook on Drug and Alcohol
Testing includes examples of the material covered in these
thorough documents.
• When FMCSRs are not a factor, it appears that the nature
of one's customers is the driving force behind whether a
company has a zero-tolerance policy—more than the laws in a
specific state. When customers require their service providers
to comply with federal Mine Safety and Health Administration
(MSHA) guidelines, or customers impose random checks on
contractors' employees, the portable sanitation company is far
more likely to have a zero-tolerance policy and to document it
comprehensively.
