Employee drug testing: An economic segmentation and worker power analysis

Robert Carl Schehr, Purdue University

Abstract

This analysis of employee drug testing examines both the decision to implement, and the form of drug testing programs dependent upon the location of firms within the dual economy. A review of the economic segmentation literature is followed by some discussion of internal labor markets and the relation between the two. The contemporary segmentation literature stressing the significance of industry location, worker power, and the state has been employed to discern the potential impact of employee drug testing on the social relations of production within industries by economic sector. A number of bivariate relationships were identified to contextualize the implementation of drug testing programs by sector. In addition, logistic regression was used to identify the impact of worker power, which in almost all cases proved to be consistently opposed to drug testing, and in some instances impacted the form of the testing program. Finally, theoretically consistent results appeared in the likelihood of adopting drug testing programs, firms willing to hire applicants who test positive, and in predicting exactly who would be tested. Data gathered on the role of the state suggests that where state purchases of goods within an industry is substantial, drug testing will be the rule.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Marshall, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Labor relations|Management|Labor economics

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