Suncor cites 73 incidents in push for drug testing
Suncor faces “profound problems” with drugs and alcohol at its oilsands operations, including accidents, injuries and death, according to documents filed to support the company’s push for increased testing.
The energy giant wants to start random drug and alcohol testing Friday in the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo (RMWB), more than five years after Unifor local 707A won an injunction putting the proposed program on hold until an arbitration board’s decision.
Although the board sided with the union, a judge later overturned the ruling, a verdict upheld in September by the Alberta Court of Appeal, which ordered a new arbitration hearing. Unifor, which is seeking leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada, will ask for another injunction Thursday, but Suncor argues in court documents there has been 73 safety incidents in the last four years where workers tested positive for drugs or alcohol.
These include a driver whose idling, unattended truck rolled into a gas oil unit; a forklift operator lifting a 4,500-kg pipe that rolled to the ground; and a dozer driver whose machine tipped over, environment, health and safety vice-president Mike Agnew states in an affidavit.
As well, a heavy hauler driver who crashed into another vehicle and lost part of one leg had 16 types of pills in a bag in his truck.
Among 126 positive drug tests from October 2012 to October 2017, 93 of the results were at least three times the acceptable levels and 26 of them were more than 50 times higher, Agnew states.
“Despite comprehensive measures implemented over the past 35 years to address safety concerns with alcohol and drugs, Suncor has faced, and continues to face, profound problems with alcohol and drugs at its operations in the RMWB.”
In one of the area’s five workplace fatalities since 2013, an employee who later turned out to be legally impaired by alcohol climbed a ladder while checking high-voltage currents and was electrocuted.
In the last four years, there have been more than 1,100 security incidents related to drugs, alcohol and paraphernalia, such as 20 cases of suspected drunk driving, 180 cases of intoxication and eight times devices were found for tampering with urine to be tested.
The company has spent about $4 million treating substance abuse dependency since 2012.
“It is my belief that if this matter goes to the Supreme Court of Canada and subsequently has to go back to a new hearing, granting the union’s application will effectively place a prohibition on Suncor implementing random testing,” Agnew stated.
“It could be years before this matter is fully resolved.”
The random tests would affect about 4,500 workers in safetysensitive jobs and 90 managers.
About 6,300 people worked at Suncor facilities in the region in October.
But Unifor lawyer John Carpenter wrote in an application the random testing policy would breach the privacy and “bodily integrity” of workers.
He cited 2012 affidavits from two members who felt embarrassed and degraded after drug and alcohol tests, describing lengthy detention by the company, having an assistant from the testing company listen to them urinate and being joked about by colleagues.