Risk Assessment and Prevention Principles
A drug and alcohol policy at the workplace fits into the general system of labour safety: at every stage of the work, in order to reduce or eliminate the risk of harm to health, the employer must, in accordance with the procedure established by ministerial administrative-legal act and in view of the size and specifics of the enterprise, assess this risk, update the risk-assessment document and take appropriate measures. The assessment and the measures rest on general principles: avoiding existing risks; assessing those risks that cannot be avoided; reducing the danger, including by eliminating its source; substituting hazardous factors with safe or less dangerous ones; developing a policy of consistent preventive measures; and preparing a written document defining the measures, their deadlines, the persons responsible and the resources required.
The priorities within this system are equally clear: collective protective measures are given priority over individual protection unless legislation provides otherwise. This means the enterprise first seeks to protect against the source of danger by reducing or altering the hazardous environment itself, and only then turns to personal protection. The employer must provide employees with appropriate training and instruction, ensure the adaptation of the work — in terms of the layout of the working space, equipment and methods — and keep the risk-assessment document in the prescribed manner.
The Employer's Concrete Duties
Flowing from the risk assessment, the employer is obliged to define in writing, on the basis of the distribution of functions, obligations and responsibilities in the sphere of labour safety; to admit to risky workplaces only persons who have undergone special training or instruction; to identify and register hazardous workplaces; to ensure the continuous functioning of protection and control systems; to provide information to the supervisory body on demand; to equip the enterprise with collective protection; and to provide employees and other persons free of charge with effective individual protective means wherever necessary for the protection of life or health.
Preliminary and periodic medical examinations are likewise conducted in the cases provided by law — which, in the context of a sobriety policy, means that managing intoxication-related risks relies also on instruments of medical control and not only on administrative prohibitions. The decisive norm for a sobriety policy is the following: the employer is obliged not to admit to work an employee or other person who is in a state of alcoholic, narcotic or psychotropic intoxication, and for this purpose to define, by internal regulatory norms, a group of persons authorized to supervise this process. The prohibition of working while intoxicated is thus not only the employee's own duty but also the employer's negative obligation — admitting such a person is forbidden.