Drug testing by DOC sets precedent
By Bill Cotterell
TALLAHASSEE DEMOCRAT POLITICAL EDITOR
When the Department of Corrections decided to test its employees for drug use, two things were perfectly predictable. One was that Corrections Secretary Jim McDonough, the former head of Gov. Jeb Bush's office of drug policy, would take the first test himself. There's no way the old Army colonel would make his troops do anything like that if he and his top brass weren't doing it, too. Second, you knew the state-employee union representing most DOC workers would challenge the drug-testing policy. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees is seeking a meeting with the DOC, demanding justification of the plan it announced last Tuesday - the first step in a legal contest. The Police Benevolent Association, which represents the correctional and probation officers, is on board with DOC. The PBA even joined in making the official announcement, saying it was important for Floridians to know that the people running the prisons aren't stoned. But AFSCME is another matter. Unlike the PBA, which endorsed Bush as far back as 1994 and has been richly rewarded legislatively, the union representing state office workers and laborers has opposed pretty much everything the governor and his major department heads have done over the years. And, having suffered legislatively for its resistance, AFSCME was not about to join the applause last week. Specifically, AFSCME has been fighting drug testing for nearly 20 years, since Gov. Bob Martinez offered the first legislation on the topic. AFSCME state President Jeanette Wynn said she was invited to the DOC announcement, along with the PBA. She said AFSCME agrees with McDonough about one thing - probably 99 percent of employees have nothing to hide - but that's not the point. AFSCME is as zealous in protecting its legal right to negotiate terms and conditions of employment as McDonough is about combatting drug use. "It really is the principle of the thing," Wynn said. DOC has had some scandals lately, including steroid cases. Besides his own zero-tolerance for all illicit-drug use, McDonough is rightly worried that some beefed-up guy going on a 'roid-rage rampage will kill an inmate or a coworker. But Wynn worries that if DOC can randomly test everybody, so can every other state agency. "Our people are not correctional officers. They are the office staff," she said. "We don't think it's appropriate for our people to be tested without reasonable cause." Contact Bill Cotterell at (850) 671-6545 or
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. Originally published May 15, 2006 http://www.tallahassee.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060515/COLUMNIST03/605150315/-1/CAPITOLNEWS
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