News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Trading privacy for survival is another tax on the poor by astura on Monday March 18, 2019 @12:28PM (#19422521)
Sure your cool valley startup with a flip-flop wearing CEO isn't going to require a drug test (and probably not a formal background check), but buttoned up corporate America absolutely does as well as government and most companies who does business with government. So basically most non-small-companies outside of California. Employee drug testing got popular in the early-90s, it was even the topic of a Seinfeld joke. Though I hear its becoming less common in the last few years, and some have stopped testing for marijuana.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/careers/employment-tren...

>There is no definitive data on how many companies conduct drug tests, though the Society for Human Resources Management found in a survey that 57 percent do so. Nor is there any recent data on how many have dropped marijuana from mandatory drug testing.

>After the Drug-Free Workplace Act was enacted in 1988, amid concerns about cocaine use, drug testing spread to most large companies. All Fortune 500 companies now engage in some form of drug testing, according to Barry Sample, a senior director at Quest Diagnostics, one of the largest testing firms.

Re:Trading privacy for survival is another tax on the poor by cgriswald on Monday March 18, 2019 @12:52PM (#19422747)
Your citation doesn't really support any of the arguments, since it doesn't address which jobs require drug testing at those Fortune 500 companies.

For example, Walmart is number one on the list. Is it the CEO who is being tested, or the guys unloading the shipping trucks?

Re:Trading privacy for survival is another tax on the poor by fzeroracer on Monday March 18, 2019 @03:30PM (#19424325)
I have not once in the entirety of my software development experience been drug tested. Prior to my current job at Large Corporation I worked at a government contractor.

Not that I ever did drugs because there was no way I was going to risk the government coming down on me, but it's an example of how drug testing is still something mostly relegated to the lower paying jobs unless your employer has reasonable suspicion in the case of government work.

Re:Trading privacy for survival is another tax on the poor by notfromhere on Monday March 18, 2019 @01:46PM (#19423258)
I've worked at a few non-small companies outside of California, literally none of them have even floated a drug test.