Women in Business: Their Own Worst Enemy?

With women holding so few key roles and leadership positions in boardrooms around the world, you might think we’d spend time building each other up rather than tearing each other down. But it seems that despite constant calls for more stringent gender equality measures in the workplace, it can often be women themselves sabotaging progress.
In 2010 Kelly Valen released a hard-hitting book entitled The Twisted Sisterhood, which revealedthat almost 90 percent of the 3,000-plus women who took part in her survey frequently felt “currents of meanness and negativity emanating from other females” and that almost 85 percent of those who took part in the 50-question survey admitted having suffered “serious, life-altering knocks at the hands of other women”.
Valen went on to say that there was “a distinct undercurrent of meanness and negativity plaguing our gender, and that these secret, social battles are waged, in many cases, by the very same women singing the praises of girl power, feminism, and female friendship in their lives”.
It’s a ‘Man’s World’ — so why aren’t we women helping one another?
It is speculated that such ‘sniper sister’ attitudes stem from a distinct feeling that there’s not enough success to go around; because we live in what is still a male-dominated society, women are apt to feel like they are presented with fewer opportunities, and thus have more motive for one-upmanship (or one-upwomanship) than men perhaps do.
Research by the Institute of Leadership and Management on ambition and gender found different attitudes between men and women. Compared to their male counterparts, they tend to lack self-belief and confidence — which leads to a cautious approach to job opportunities and a reluctance to take risks in order to further their careers.
Traditionally, young girls are also taught conflict avoidance roles — not necessarily a bad thing in school, but in a workplace environment this can lead to a continuation of passive-aggressive patterns into adulthood. Instead of addressing a conflict directly, some women whisper – not all, but it only takes a few to have a knock-on effect on another woman’s career. Whether perpetuating rumors that a female colleague only got the job because she’s good-looking or even because she must be sleeping with the boss, such spite takes its toll.
As well as this, young girls are often socialized not to compete, according to a Women In Higher Education article which goes on to state that relationships are particularly central to women’s lives, and that they expect their friendships to be on a level playing field; thus, when something affects this balance, such as a promotion, it raises feelings of insecurity. It seems women are far more likely to judge their professional abilities against those of other female colleagues than those of males.
In fact, a recent Oxygen Media poll found that 65 percent of women resent other women who are either in power, or act like they are.
This pervading culture of comparison could work for the positive; but only if women start treating the issue as one of a non-gendered meritocracy and use it to healthily fuel their own and other women’s ambitions.
Instead, often women still think they should be handed things just for being women – a problem which perpetuates feelings of resentment and negativity from both those struggling to promote for gender equality and professional meritocracy as well as those who are happy to take such isolated individuals as spokespeople for the equality movement and use it for their own misogynistic means.
Intentionally or not, it seems many of us women are guilty of at least one of the above. Whether by harboring insecurities which prevent us from stepping forward and taking on a new challenge, intentionally deriding the success and progress of other women or even nurturing illusions of inviting social condemnation simply because we happen to be women, we need to work together to stop this kind of behavior.

The Worst CEOs of 2012

Who are the absolute worst chief executives of 2012? Sydney Finkelstein thinks he knows. The longtime professor at Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business is the author of 11 books with such titles as Why Smart Executives Fail and Think Again: Why Good Leaders Make Bad Decisions, so he knows a thing or two about utter failure. He’s been putting out his list for three years now, and last year it included the chief executives ofNetflix (NFLX), Research in Motion (RIM), and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ). Here’s the list (except where noted the companies didn’t respond to a request for comment):

1. Brian Dunn, who resigned as chief executive of Best Buy (BBY) in April after allegations surfaced that he had an inappropriate relationship with a much younger subordinate. That’s not why he’s on the list, though. Declining stock price, cratering same-store sales, loss of market share to more nimble competitors, and an addiction to share buybacks that cost the company $6.4 billion with little to show for it—that’s why he’s on the list.

2. Aubrey McClendon, the CEO of Chesapeake Energy (CHK) who apparently has trouble keeping his company’s finances and his own apart. According to Reuters, McClendon borrowed as much as $1.1 billion over three years in undisclosed loans against his stake in thousands of company wells and ran a $200 million oil-and-gas hedge fund on the side, an “obvious conflict of interest,” Finkelstein says. Use of the company jet (and company employees) for personal purposes and a corporate sponsorship deal for Oklahoma City Thunder while McClendon was an owner of the basketball team also didn’t help. Jim Gipson, a spokesman for Chesapeake Energy, declined to comment.

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More Workers Claiming Job Discrimination Over Language, Accents

More people in the workforce are claiming discrimination over their English-speaking ability or foreign accents, according to federal officials.

Workplace discrimination complaints based on national origin — which often involve language ability — rose by 76 percent from 1997 to 2011, when more than 11,800 complaints were lodged with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The EEOC attributes the trend to a more ethnically diverse labor force — about 45 million Americans speak a language other than English at home. Civil-rights advocates say workplace environments have grown more hostile in states enacting tough new immigration laws.

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PROTECTION AGAINST WORKPLACE HARASSMENT

The United States Supreme Court, as well as federal district and state courts, define employee rights and an employer’s liability for employment law violations. The trend is clear: treatment on the job, including hiring, firing, and promotions, must be based on qualifications and merit and not on race, gender, age, sexual preference, disability or how one responds to sexual advances in the workplace.

Race and Sex Discrimination

The federal Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title VII, prohibits employers from discriminating against job seekers and employees on the basis of race, religion, sex, pregnancy, and national origin. Private employers with less than 15 employees are not subject to the Act. However, some states do not set numerical limits. California, for example, prohibits racial or sexual discrimination no matter how few workers the company employs.

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Many American Workplaces are Becoming More Segregated

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on an affirmative action case that once again raised
Job-seekers line up for at the Congressional Black Caucus for the People Jobs Initiative in Los Angeles. (Jonathan Alcorn – Reuters) the contentious question of how best to create equal opportunity for all Americans. Interestingly enough, many on both sides of the debate over the University of Texas’s use of race in college admissions seemed to accept that the United States has been steadily growing towards greater equality over the past generation.

But research we just completed for a new book, “Documenting Desegregation,” tells a different story. In many workplaces, the United States has fallen off the path to equal employment opportunity, with racial and gender segregation on the rise in many firms and industries.

The results of our research found in part that there has been a trend toward racial re-segregation among white men and black men since 2000 and increased segregation since 1970 between black women and white women in American workplaces — so much so that it has eliminated progress made in the late 1960s. This is not simply an academic question, but a fundamental problem with American society. While most of us morally embrace equal opportunity and race and gender equality, we find that America is still a long way from those commitments. Only by confronting our shortcomings as a society can we address them.

To understand current conditions, we need to look at how we got here. Before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 made it illegal to discriminate in employment, there was near-total segregation in private-sector employment. Black men, black women, and white women almost never held the same job in the same workplace as white men. When they did share workplaces, women and people of color were almost always in low-skill jobs with no authority. In sum, good jobs were reserved for white men.

That changed with the passage of the Civil Rights Act. Employers immediately began hiring more black workers and promoting them to jobs once reserved for whites. In the 1960s, black men made strong gains in skilled blue-collar jobs and black women in clerical work. This trend continued through the 1970s, with black men, black women and white women gaining unprecedented access to white-collar managerial and professional jobs. Between 1964 and 1980, employment segregation between black men and white men dropped by 15 percent.

But in 1980, progress for black Americans in the workplace came to an abrupt stop.

By 1980, the civil rights movement had lost most of its political steam. The Republican Party had made racial divisiveness and attacks on affirmative action central to its political project, and the Democrats became timid out of concern they could lose the Southern white vote.

Following Ronald Reagan’s election, the government cut funding for federal agencies charged with promoting equal opportunity. Affirmative action was largely recast as reverse discrimination and committed employers had to struggle against the federal government to defend the equal-opportunity principle.

As a result, our research found, racial employment segregation has hardly budged since 1980. Drawing on the most comprehensive data available, our recent study contained information from more than five million private-sector workplaces, collected annually by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) since 1966. In our research, segregation means the extent to which two groups work together in the same occupation in the same workplace.

Distressingly, 19 of the 58 industries we surveyed — nearly one-third of all industries — showed a trend toward racial re-segregation between white men and black men over the last dozen years. Transportation services, motion pictures, construction, securities and commodities brokerages are some of the sectors that reflect this trend. In addition, re-segregation since 1970 between black and white women in workplaces has eliminated progress made in the late 1960s.

Transportation services, railroads, publishing and many low-wage manufacturing industries show increased segregation between black and white women. Unfortunately, increased access to private sector managerial jobs for black men and black women came to a grinding halt more than 30 years ago as well. Meanwhile, black women’s employment segregation from white women has actually grown somewhat, as white women made continued gains into traditionally white male jobs.

Ironically, the Civil Rights Act instructed the newly formed EEOC to monitor progress toward ending race and gender discrimination and equal opportunity in employment. The EEOC has never had the funding or resources to fulfill this mission. Our book does just that, documenting the progress and regress of private sector firms toward equal opportunity in employment.

That’s not to say that there hasn’t been any progress since 1980. Overall, white men are more likely to work in the same job in the same workplace with black women, black men and white women than they were in 1966. And women and minorities have made significant gains in management jobs in social services.

But it’s notable that the progress we have made has not been fueled by federal intervention. In fact, our research shows, federal contractors have shown a pattern of re-segregation and an increased preference for white men since 1980. Many industries and firms show patterns of increased racial segregation and lower access of black men and women to good jobs.

Where has there been progress? In general, African Americans tend to do better in workplaces that use formal credentials to make hiring decisions. Minorities and white women have made the most progress in professional jobs. These occupations require specific educational credentials to be considered for employment. African Americans also progress in those relatively rare large, private-sector firms that monitor their managers diversity track record.

In other words, merit-based selection actually leads to affirmative action in employment. A focus on merit coupled with managerial accountability helps control racial biases in decision-making. Without clear hiring criteria and accountability, bias tends to flourish.

To level the playing field for these merit-based practices and promote diversity in jobs that require college degrees, affirmative action in college admissions is crucial. Diversity in college enrollments and completion leads to diversity in employment even in non-managerial jobs. Many responsible employers recognize this dynamic and have petitioned the Supreme Court in Fisher v. University of Texas to leave affirmative action in college admissions untouched.

As our findings make clear, we’ve got to do more to get back on the path to equal opportunity in America’s workplaces. Government regulators have a role to play in these efforts, especially in the absence of mass movements pushing for change. The government could use the data we deployed in our research to make clear which cities, industries and even firms have the most troubling employment records.

If the worst offenders must face aggressive legal or regulatory action and the threat of bad press, companies will likely renew their commitment to equal opportunity both to avoid negative publicity and to successfully recruit productive and diverse labor forces.

Currently, corporations are largely protected from public scrutiny when it comes to equal employment opportunity. But if campaign contributions, pollution discharges, stock market activity and even balance sheets of publicly traded companies are all public record, shouldn’t employment practices be as well?

Cancer Treatment Centers of America ® in Arizona Purchases BSD-2000 Hyperthermia System from BSD Medical

SALT LAKE CITY–(BUSINESS WIRE)– BSD Medical Corporation (NAS: BSDM) (Company or BSD) (www.BSDMedical.com), a leading provider of medical systems that utilize targeted heat therapy to treat cancer, announced today that the Cancer Treatment Centers of America^® (CTCA) at Western Regional Medical Center (WRMC), located in Goodyear, Arizona, has purchased a BSD-2000 Hyperthermia System (BSD-2000). WRMC serves the Western United States, including the major metropolitan areas of Phoenix, Denver, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Seattle, Portland and Albuquerque. This will be the eighth BSD Hyperthermia system purchased by CTCA^®.

WRMC is a state-of-the-art, all-digital cancer hospital that provides advanced cancer treatments, world-class technologies and integrative therapies under one roof. The 213,000-square-foot facility is located on a 25-acre site, which is part of the Phoenix metropolitan area. Like the other CTCA cancer hospitals, WRMC provides the most advanced therapeutic resources in cancer treatment (http://www.cancercenter.com/western-hospital/about-western/history.cfm).

CTCA is a network of hospitals and one of the premier providers of cancer care in the world. CTCA physicians specialize in treating many types of cancer, including complex and advanced stage cases. CTCA is committed to revolutionizing cancer care by providing the most advanced and effective cancer treatments and integrative therapies available in order to treat the cancer and improve the patient’s treatment experience and quality of life. The CTCA hospitals were recently recognized by the Commission on Cancer of the American College of Surgeons as “offering the very best in cancer care.”
About the BSD-2000 Hyperthermia System
The BSD-2000 – developed and patented exclusively by BSD – delivers localized therapeutic heating (hyperthermia) by applying radiofrequency (RF) energy. The BSD-2000 creates a central focusing of energy that can be electronically focused to target the shape, size, and location of the tumor, thus providing dynamic control of the heating delivered to the tumor region. The BSD-2000 has Humanitarian Device Exemption (HDE) marketing approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use in conjunction with radiation therapy for the treatment of cervical cancer patients who are ineligible for chemotherapy. The BSD-2000 also has CE (Conformité Européenne) Marking approval for the commercial sale in Europe. CE Marking approval is also recognized in many countries outside of the EU.
About BSD Medical Corporation
BSD Medical Corporation develops, manufactures, markets and services systems to treat cancer and benign diseases using heat therapy delivered using focused radiofrequency (RF) and microwave energy. BSD’s product lines include both hyperthermia and ablation treatment systems. BSD’s hyperthermia cancer treatment systems, which have been in use for several years in the United States, Europe and Asia, are used to treat certain tumors with heat (hyperthermia) while increasing the effectiveness of other therapies such as radiation therapy. BSD’s microwave ablation system has been developed as a stand-alone therapy to employ precision-guided microwave energy to ablate (destroy) soft tissue. The Company has developed extensive intellectual property, multiple products in the market and established distribution in the United States, Europe and Asia. Certain of the Company’s products have received regulatory approvals and clearances in the United States, Europe and China. For further information visit BSD Medical’s website at www.BSDMedical.com.
About Cancer Treatment Centers of America®
Cancer Treatment Centers of America, Inc. (CTCA) is a national network of hospitals focusing on complex and advanced stage cancer. CTCA offers a comprehensive, fully integrated approach to cancer treatment and serves patients from all 50 states at facilities located in Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia, Phoenix and Tulsa. Known for delivering the Mother Standard® of care and Patient Empowerment Medicine®, CTCA provides patients with information about cancer and their treatment options so they can control their treatment decisions. For more information about CTCA, go towww.cancercenter.com.
Statements contained in this press release that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements, as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties detailed in the Company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date on which such statements are made, and the Company undertakes no obligation to update such statements to reflect events or circumstances arising after such date.

Core to an organization is respect

Respect is at the core of relationships and relationships are what make today’s families, businesses and organizations work. When respectful behavior is exercised toward others under any circumstances, it adds value and meaning to relationships.

In a conversation about respect in the workplace one day, a colleague, Nick Cirilli asked a very simple question. “Where is the line? How far do I go with my comments toward or about someone else?” Many times when we have strong differences of beliefs or opinions with people or we want to make people pay for what they did, we feel that we have a ‘perfectly good right’ to say anything that we want to them, and/or about them. We even go as far as getting other people and friends on our side. Sometimes those feelings are so strong, that it would probably take more than anything that I could tell you for you to be respectful anyway.

I have often been in situations in which I wanted to make someone pay for what they did so much that I felt absolutely justified to say anything that I wanted to them and do everything that I could to get others to feel the same way. However, as I learned more about respect, I realized how much I could be in control of what comes out of my mouth. I would love to say that I am the perfect example of how to respect everyone. Truthfully?? I have to work at it and there are times when it requires more effort than others. I can say that I have improved significantly. I do know that when I get to the name calling or language that could take away the esteem of another person, I have gone over the line. I call it the “Cirilli Line”. I am also learning to help people to PLAY rather than making them pay – educating someone on how to be more respectful in a way that we can work together more productively.

Respect is also an essential part of strengthening organizational unity. If you have a rule of only respecting those who respect you, you limit the opportunities to bring the best out of people. However, if you always exercise respect for everyone whatever the circumstances, you set yourself up to take advantage of the creativity and productive decision-making that moves things forward. When you label people, you look for the label that you give them. If you call someone ‘selfish,’ for instance, you may recognize that one characteristic in the person enough to hide other qualities or motives that may help or impress you. Take the label away. That gives you the power to set up a productive relationship that works.

Exercising workplace respect also means to interact in ways that contribute to maintaining and respecting the self-esteem of others. It means harnessing the power that you have by using respectful language when speaking of others. It means being an example for speaking to and about others.
True expressions of workplace respect include respecting others when they are out of our sight, the same way as if they are in our presence. If you want to talk about someone or a group, make sure it is okay to talk about them or to poke fun or to call them names that could take away from their self-esteem. If you question whether it would be okay to talk about them that way, it is best to be quiet. Of course, you can take a minute to ask. Most important, rather than putting conditions on whether you will treat others with respect, respect others anyway, whether they are in the room or out of the room.

Workplace respect includes two other considerations: 1) the Golden Rule: Treat others the way that you would like to be treated. Whenever you have strong differences of opinions or beliefs, you can use the Golden Rule. 2) The Platinum Rule, according to Dr. Tony Alessandra and Dr. Michael J. O’Connor (The Platinum Rule 1998): “Do unto others as they’d like done unto them.” Sometimes people just want their names spelled correctly or they just want a ‘fair chance’ or they want to be valued customers. Treating others the way that they want to be treated is the expression of your respect for the values and needs of others in your daily interactions. Therefore, workplace respect includes your use of four abilities:

• Respect everyone anyway
• Respect everyone whether they are in the room or out of the room
• Treat others the way you would want to be treated
• Treat others the way that they would want to be treated

They are called abilities because you can control your interactive behavior and what comes out of your mouth. Using those abilities helps you to successfully manage your interactions with others. As you get better, you become a model for others to follow with the surprise consequence of increasing the respect that others have for you and around you, sometimes just because your respectful behavior is so impressive. When differences do exist, remember the skill to ‘help people to PLAY rather than making them pay’.

Best Ways To Gain Employment After A Gap Year

Taking a year off after school isn’t always a bad idea. It could be a good way to get yourself mentally prepared for the next step after you have finished your education. However, finding a job with any type of gap in your educational or employment record could be problematic. How do you find work after being out of school and work for a year?

Don’t Just Sit Around Doing Nothing

Just because you are taking time off doesn’t mean that you should be sitting around doing nothing. This is the perfect time to volunteer, find freelance work or start your own company. You don’t have to do anything big to put it on your resume. The goal is to show that you have been gaining skills while you have been away from school or work.
Stay Connected To Other People In Your Field
Social media will allow you to stay connected with others in your field. Keep in touch with old teachers, professors and those who you went to school with. When you are ready to go back to work, you will find that there are many people who are willing to say good things about you. Your contacts will be how you get back in the working world despite the fact that you haven’t had a job in the past year.

Start At The Bottom Of The Company

You may need to simply find a job with the company that you would like to work for. For example, you might take a part-time job sorting mail to get your foot in the door with the company that you really want to work for. When a job opening comes up, people in the office will know who you are. This will give you an opportunity to show that you are a capable worker who can get the job done.
Learn How To Write An Effective Resume
If you send the right message about yourself to employers, you are going to see a lot more interest in your services. What you need to do is sell yourself as someone who has what it takes to do the job despite being away for the past year. Highlight what you have done in the past year.
Emphasize how your travels have made it easier for you to think about relocating for work. Talk about how your work with disadvantaged youths has taught you to work with others who don’t share your background. These are the things that employers want to hear. Turn that gap in your resume into an opportunity to talk about how you have honed your skills.

Don’t Expect To Get A Job Right Away

The best thing you can do is be patient. In this economy, employers are looking for people who have current experience with a company. This means that you may have to go to a few job interviews before you get an offer. Don’t take it personally. A company will recognize your skills eventually.
Getting a job after a year away from everything can be difficult. However, you need to talk yourself up when looking for a job. Show employers how that year away actually made you a better person and employee. It won’t be long before some great company is offering you a great job.

About Author
Mark writes on behalf of a number of businesses on topics such as auto enrolment and fiduciary management. He enjoys reading about employment and business as much as he enjoys writing about it.  Any opinions expressed in the article do not necessarily represent the businesses Mark writes for.

5 Ways to Cut Office Costs

Managing costs is a crucial part of running any business, particularly when times are tight.  Fortunately there are some simple and effective steps which can cut office costs substantially.

1. Sell the Printers
In spite of exhortations to go green, printing is a habit for many people and the more printers there are in an office, the greater the temptation to churn out paper.  By removing printers one at a time (and ideally relocating the remaining printers to a location away from the main office space), workers will be encouraged to think before they print.
It is possible that further savings can be made by ensuring that all computers have their print settings set to print to both sides of the paper.  More computer-literate workers can be educated on ways to adjust print settings to make further paper savings, such as increasing the number of slides printed on a page or reducing a font size.

2. Turn off the lights
Make sure lights are turned on only when they are needed and that computer monitors and other electric equipment (such as projectors) are switched off unless actually in use.  IT technicians can organize computer settings which will turn off computers at a particular time, but if work-times are too flexible for this to be feasible, then employees will need to be educated about this policy and management will need to ensure that it is observed.

3. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Resell
Many offices inadvertently encourage people to be wasteful by making disposable items readily available, particular culprits in this regard include plastic cutlery and mugs and stationery.  Where possible replace disposable items with reusable ones.  Instead of supplying plastic cups (and cutlery), have employees bring their own and provide washing-up liquid (ideally in a pump dispenser) and cleaning cloths.
Put a lock on the stationery cupboard and have someone responsible take charge of it.  This will not only prevent pilfering but also encourage people to be responsible with stationery items rather than simply losing them or half-using them and just getting another one.  If there are items in the office which are rarely used, consider reselling them and just hiring them when needed.

4. Join Forces to Cut Costs
Suppliers often provide discounts to people who buy in bulk.  It may therefore be worth investigating the possibility of teaming up with other business which also need standard office and catering supplies.  Even if this is not possible, it may be worth asking an established and reputable supplier for a discount if a large order is placed for delivery in batches as needed.

5. Conduct Regular Spending Audits
Humans are creatures of habit and it is very easy to continue to pay for goods and services which are no longer required, particularly since so many companies these days use automatic billing systems.  By making a commitment to check expenses at least every quarter and to act where potential savings have been identified, businesses can free up money for essential costs.

About The Author:
Amy Harris is a writer for Expert Market which offers a free service to businesses, providing a sourcing tool for finding office equipment and business services. She enjoys helping businesses reduce their costs and drive profit.

Drug Testing Poses Quandary for Employers

LAWRENCEBURG, Tenn. — The news, delivered in a phone call, left Sue Bates aghast: she was losing her job of 22 years after testing positive for a legally prescribed drug.

Her employer, Dura Automotive Systems, had changed the policy at its sprawling plant here to test for certain prescription drugs as well as illicit ones. The medication that Mrs. Bates was taking for back pain — hydrocodone, a narcotic prescribed by her doctor — was among many that the company, which makes car parts, had suddenly deemed unsafe.

“I don’t think it should end the way it did,” said Mrs. Bates, an assembly line worker who has sued Dura for discrimination and invasion of privacy. “You tell somebody you lost your job because you’re on prescription medication and they’re like, ‘Yeah, right.’ ”

Two decades after the Supreme Court first upheld the right to test for drugs in the workplace, Dura’s concern — that employees on certain medications posed a safety hazard — is echoing around the country. The growing reliance of Americans on powerful prescription drugs for pain, anxiety and other maladies suggests that many are reporting to work with potent drugs in their systems, and employers are grappling for ways to address that.

What companies consider an effort to maintain a safe work environment is drawing complaints from employees who cite privacy concerns and contend that they should not be fired for taking legal medications, sometimes for injuries sustained on the job.

“This may be the point guard for an important societal issue,” Dr. Robert T. Cochran Jr., a Nashville pain specialist who treats three of the Dura plaintiffs, said of the lawsuit against Dura. “How do we address these drugs as a society?”

There is a dearth of data from independent groups regarding impairment from prescription drugs in the workplace, partly because the issue has not drawn broad scrutiny. But Quest Diagnostics, a prominent provider of workplace drug tests, said that the rate of employees testing positive for prescription opiates rose by more than 40 percent from 2005 to 2009, and by 18 percent last year alone. The data, culled from the results of more than 500,000 drug tests, also indicated that workers who were tested for drugs after accidents were four times more likely to have opiates in their systems than those tested before being hired.

“It’s not nearly on employer radar screens as much as it should be,” said Mark A. de Bernardo, executive director of the Institute for a Drug-Free Workplace, a nonprofit business coalition near Washington, and a senior partner at Jackson Lewis, an employment law firm. “Given the liability for industrial accidents or product defects or workplace injuries involving prescription drug abuse, employers cannot afford not to address this issue.”

Nor is the problem limited to factory floors like the one at Dura’s plant here, where conveyor belts are in constant motion and tow drivers shuttle pieces of glass from station to station, former workers said. In Texas, a prominent prosecutor resigned in 2008 after a scandal for which he blamed impaired judgment because of prescription drugs. And in Missouri, a patient sued alleging that a doctor had torn a hole in his colon during a 2006 colonoscopy while taking the painkiller oxycodone.

Dr. Carl Rollyn Sullivan, director of addictions programs at the West Virginia University School of Medicine in Morgantown, said he had treated “a lot of miners telling me the ridiculous amount of drugs they’re doing underground,” most of them legally prescribed.

Challenges for Employers

Setting rules about prescription drug use in the workplace is tricky, not least because it is difficult to prove impairment. Under Dura’s policy, a prescription drug was considered unsafe if its label included a warning against driving or operating machinery, but doctors say many users function normally despite such warnings.

Also, some employers find it difficult to deal with the problem partly for fear of violating the Americans with Disabilities Act. It prohibits asking employees about prescription drugs unless workers are seen acting in a way that compromises safety or suggests they cannot perform their job for medical reasons, according to lawyers with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

“We’re up against 20 years of training on the A.D.A. that essentially suggests, ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell,’ ” said Steven M. Bernstein, an employment lawyer with Fisher & Phillips in Tampa, Fla.

Christopher J. Kuczynski, assistant legal counsel in the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s policy division for the Americans with Disabilities Act, said, “The employer must have reasonable belief the person is unable to do the job or poses a threat based on a medical condition.”

The only exception is for police officers, firefighters and others in public safety jobs, Mr. Kuczynski said. They can be required to self-report the use of prescription medication if their inability or impaired ability to perform their job functions would result in a direct threat, he added.

Even with bus and truck drivers, nuclear plant workers, and others in jobs that the federal government deems “safety sensitive,” employers are required to test for only six categories of drugs that do not cover synthetic painkillers like OxyContin and Vicodin, anti-anxiety drugs like Xanax, or other controlled prescription drugs. (Because the test looks for codeine and morphine, which experts say are far less abused than the synthetics, many employers wrongly assume it looks for all opiates.)

“That is just a devastating critique of the government’s role in this,” said Dr. Robert L. DuPont, president of the Institute for Behavior and Health near Washington. “It’s a very serious hole in the system.”

Dr. Donna Bush, a senior forensic toxicologist at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, which sets parameters for federal drug testing, said the group was not pushing to add more prescription drugs.

“Which ones do we add?” she asked. “Drug testing for illicit illegal drugs is very easy because presence is an offense.”

Employers can choose to test for more drugs, which is what Dura decided to do at its Lawrenceburg plant in 2007. Citing concerns about drug use and worker safety, Dura hired an independent company to administer random drug tests. Dura chose to screen for 12 types of drugs, including hydrocodone and oxycodone.

“The goal of the plan was to provide a safe environment,” Lindy Boots, the plant’s former human resources manager, said in a deposition.

The concerns were not totally unfounded, some employees who worked at the plant said in interviews. A plaintiff said he knew of workers using illegal drugs on the job, and other former employees said they suspected people were passing around prescription drugs.

“If they had a headache or something was hurting some of them would give them one of their Lortabs,” said Willarene Fisher, a former employee who failed the drug test, of her former co-workers. Ms. Fisher is also suing.

Representatives of Dura declined to comment, citing the continuing lawsuit. It is one of two that have been filed against Dura; the other was brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Both cases are currently in court.

Court records show that over a week in May 2007, about 500 employees at the company’s Lawrenceburg plant submitted urine samples under the new testing policy. Of those, 44 tested positive for prescription drugs. They were put on a 30-day leave of absence and had to pass a second test to return to their jobs.

Susan Lowery, a former supervisor at the plant who tested positive for oxycodone, said the drug had kept her functioning after three back surgeries and did not affect her job performance.

“My record was clean,” said Mrs. Lowery, a plaintiff in one of two lawsuits against Dura. “I was there every day no matter how I felt.”

National Efforts

The drug tests coincided with Dura’s participation in Tennessee’s Drug-Free Workplace Program, which provides incentives that include a premium credit on workers’ compensation insurance.

Many states have a drug-free workplace program, a concept that developed after Congress passed the 1988 law requiring companies with federal contracts to adopt drug policies. But the programs have barely changed in the 20 years since they were conceived and focus heavily on illegal drugs.

Meanwhile, the laws on drug testing are complex and vary from state to state. Several, for example, prohibit or greatly restrict random drug testing, while many others give employers broad discretion, even providing incentives for employers to drug test their employees like discounts on workers’ compensation premiums.

Employers can ask workers in safety-sensitive jobs to self-report any potentially dangerous prescription medications, but they cannot ensure they do so.

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration urges companies to train supervisors to look for signs of drug abuse. But an incorrect assessment can land an employer in court, Dr. DuPont said.

“If somebody puts his head down on a desk, do you test him for drugs or not?” he said. “The first time you get an employee who says you’re harassing them, you’re not going to test anyone else even if they’re passed out.”

Many doctors, meanwhile, say that most people can tolerate and function well on pain medication taken under their supervision.

“In general,” said Dr. Seddon R. Savage, a pain specialist at Dartmouth College and president of the American Pain Society, “well-prescribed opioids at a stable dose that are well supervised in most healthy people won’t cause sedation or other cognitive problems.”

Dr. Cochran said that opiate painkillers can help workers do their jobs better if taken appropriately.

“I think they terminated some people who were not in any way compromised,” he said of Dura.

Yet Dr. Cochran also estimated that about 15 percent of his patients misused painkillers and said that he understood why employers would be worried.

At the very least, Dr. DuPont said, the standardized testing that is now mandatory for transportation and nuclear workers should be expanded to include more legal drugs. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration recently added a sixth drug, ecstasy, to the panel of five — marijuana; cocaine; amphetamines; phencyclidine, or PCP; and nonsynthetic opiates — that it has long required safety-sensitive workers to be tested for.

That leaves employers in even the most safety-sensitive fields to make their own decisions about whether to test for synthetic opiates and other commonly used legal drugs. And many are skittish, even though anecdotes abound about people misusing or abusing prescription drugs in the workplace.

“I’ve seen people have their fingers cut off because they or somebody they depended on to operate machinery properly was out of it,” said Dr. Neil Capretto, medical director at Gateway Rehabilitation Center in Aliquippa, Pa. “We treat some people in construction who say so many of their co-workers are using, they sometimes have to change careers because it’s too much of a trigger for them to go back to work after rehab.”

Finding a Balance

Dr. Barry Sample, director of science and technology for the Employer Solutions business of Quest Diagnostics, said the smartest thing employers can do is come up with a thorough and consistent policy that spells out which drugs their workers might be tested for and under what circumstances.

Supervisors, he said, should be carefully trained to look for signs of impairment — the “reasonable suspicion” necessary under law to warrant testing.

“They need to understand what constitutes reasonable suspicion,” he said, “and make sure the policy is communicated clearly and very well to the employees who are going to be impacted.”

But some worry that employers wading into the realm of prescription drugs could infringe on privacy and dredge up stereotypes about people who take certain medications.

“People make stereotypical assumptions about certain medications, whether they’re prescription or over-the-counter, and use those prejudices from prohibiting people from maintaining gainful employment,” said Nick Pladson, an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission lawyer in Minneapolis who is suing a manufacturing company on behalf of a man who was required to disclose the prescription drugs he was taking and was later fired.

Although Dura officials said in court documents that the goal of expanded testing was to protect employees, some plaintiffs in the lawsuits claim they were injured on the job and supervisors knew about the medications they were taking. Others say they believe the company wanted to get rid of them because they were costing it thousands of dollars in insurance premiums, a charge the company has denied.

“The reason I was taking the medication was a work-related injury,” said Mark Long, 38, who worked at Dura and was fired for taking hydrocodone. “I really didn’t expect for my job to end.”

Supervisors worried that employees, who manufactured hundreds of thousands of windows for automotive companies including General Motors and Ford within very close proximity of one another, could cause a “domino effect” if one was impaired and had an accident.

Mr. Long said he had stopped taking Lortab after losing his job because the pain subsided when he was not working full-time. With work scarce in Lawrenceburg, a city of 14,000 in south-central Tennessee, Mr. Long drives 70 miles each way to work as a boat mechanic in northern Alabama.

Mrs. Bates, whose job was trimming car window molding, said she had been unable to find another job. She said she understood Dura’s safety concerns but believed the company should have worked with employees who take prescription drugs rather than fire them.

“If the medicine they’re taking is not good for them or the workplace, then there should be some sort of program where they can teach us how that affects you or see if something else can be worked out,” Mrs. Bates said. “But that was not an option for us.”

HIV Employment Discrimination Still an Issue in US, UK

Employment law and licensing practices in the United States and the United Kingdom are making it increasingly difficult for people living with HIV to enter the workforce, further increasing stigma and discrimination, according to two studies presented Tuesday, July 34, at the XIX International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2012) in Washington, DC.

The first study, presented by Alison Yager, JD, of the HIV Law Project in New York, focused on professional licensing practices within the United States and how broad language can often lead to unlawful denial of licenses.

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What Does Your Retirement Plan Really Cost?

Are you shopping for a new 401(k) plan for your employees this holiday season? For many employers, the impetus for switching providers comes from new fee-disclosure rules that took effect in July 2012. The rules require providers to detail all costs associated with their 401(k) plans. The idea was to improve transparency by preventing providers from hiding fees, thereby helping employers shop for the best options to their employees.
But the disclosure rules don’t apply to the proposals from retirement plan companies soliciting business.

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