IAEE Says No to Drugs
-- Tradeshow Week, 1/28/2008
The Intl. Assn. of Exhibitions and Events has adopted a policy aimed at achieving drug-free workplaces in the exhibitions and events industry. Its first step: random drug testing for all IAEE employees.
The association will take other measures as well:
- IAEE's Board of Directors will encourage a right-of-entry provision for all major venues, to be coupled with random drug testing.
- IAEE will encourage members to adopt random drug testing at their workplaces.
- It will inform members of the consequences and scope of drug use via all its education and information channels.
- It will urge all organizations in industry organization's to support these efforts with their own initiatives, and to join in creating a drug-free workplace alliance.
The anti-drug effort that the Washington (D.C.) Convention Center undertook in conjunction with service contractors and organized labor in 2004 inspired IAEE's program. Steven Hacker, IAEE president, said Ken Viscovich, international representative of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters, helped convince him that combating drug abuse is good for the industry.
Hacker said: “This isn't a moral issue, it's a business issue. Drug abuse impairs the quality of events through loss of productivity and accidents. … This is not punitive. Workers failing drug tests would be suspended automatically for 45 days and required to undergo rehabilitation, with rehiring a goal.”
He added that venues could use right-of-entry provisions in their contracts to bar anyone not passing drug tests from working in the building, with the focus on service contractor labor.
The IAEE Board ordered random drug testing for all IAEE employees to begin March 1 as evidence of its commitment to achieving drug-free workplaces. Hacker said the group announced its random drug policy to employees in early January, and that they were accepting of it.
When Randy Bauler, corporate relations and exhibits director for the American Assn. of Critical-care Nurses, assumed the 2008 IAEE chairmanship at the Expo! Expo! in Las Vegas in December, he named as one of his top priorities raising awareness of this issue.
