Air Canada To Test Flight Attendant's Hair For Illegal Substances & Weed After Reports Of Misconduct And Hijacking Jokes

Air Canada ACDVF was granted the right from a federal labor arbitrator to test a strand of a flight attendant's hair for drugs.

The flight attendant, known as CB, was expelled from a home where 14 Air Canada employees were staying because of reports of inappropriate behavior, writesCBC News.

CB's colleagues claimed previously that the flight attendant was smoking a bong and making dark jokes about hijacking the plane. His fellow cabin crew member wrote complaints that reached a Vancouver-based service director manager for Air Canada, resulting in a request for a strand of CB's hair and a dispute between the largest Canadian airline and the Canadian Union of Public Employees.

“[He] seemed dazed every other day and appeared to be under the influence of substances," one complaint said, according to the arbitrator's report.

Airline Vs Union Or Safety Vs Personal Life Rights

Canada legalized recreational cannabis use more than five years ago, and the union decided to react, by filing a motion to prohibit Air Canada from relying on any information revealed by the test until CB got a chance to challenge the request. Arbitrator William Kaplan called this motion "extraordinary."

The union further argued that hair strand testing was "an unacceptable intrusion" into CB's personal life and that an employee off work can't be tested for substances unless random testing is in their contract. It also claimed that the testing is in violation of the rules governing the principles of collective agreements.

“Simply put, the company does not, union counsel argued, have any right to control the lives of its employees when they are not on duty or subject to duty,” Kaplan wrote.

Why hair testing?

Hair testing seems like the only valuable option since it can detect substance use in the past three months, while saliva testing can determine only recent consumption and urine tests shows only the use over the last seven days. Considering that more than two weeks have passed since CB's colleagues reported him and the day he was ordered in for screening, hair strain testing was necessary.

Air Canada explained that this was not a standard test and that this was an exceptional case and one fully justified by the facts.

Weighing Risks, The Company Needed To Take Action

Kaplan explained the company’s position, by saying that "the risk of returning an employee to work in circumstances like those presented here far outweighed any of the identified interests of either the union or the grievor, Those results needed to be known and, if they indicated substance use, the company needed to take action.”

While acknowledging the union's right to protect its member's privacy, Kaplan sided with the airline, saying the company had "an entirely legitimate safety interest to protect.”

“Indeed, in the face of those reports from the grievor’s colleagues and housemates, it would have been derelict of the company to ignore the information it had received,” Kaplan wrote.

Kaplan also highlighted that Air Canada's policies don't allow its crew to use illegal substances and marijuana "at all times, even when not on duty or not in the workplace” except when prescribed as medication.

What's Next?

The arbitrator disclosed that while the union can still challenge flight management's handling of the case, in the meantime the test results will provide useful information.

Air Canada was pleased with this decision which "confirms that safety is essential in our business."

See Also: United Airlines Workers Caught Stealing Cannabis From Checked Bags, Feds Uncover Operation At SFO

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