BA 3200 MOD 4 Case Study

Module Four Case Study

Case Study: The Coors Tests -Due ???? Note: the following case is copyrighted and may be copied and used only by current

users and owners of the textbook, BUSINESS ETHICS: CONCEPTS AND CASES by

Manuel Velasquez.

On April 5, 1977, the members of Brewery Workers Local No. 366 walked off the job at the Adolf Coors Brewery Plant in Golden, Colorado.

1 The wildcat strike was motivated

in part by Coors's use of lie detector tests in a pre-employment examination required of prospective employees. Said an officer of the union: "When you get through being grilled on that lie detector, you feel dirty."

2

To support their case the union collected several notarized affidavits in which striking employees alleged that the company had asked them improper questions during the lie detector test. Two of the notarized affidavits read in part as follows.

3

In April of 1973, I, John A. K __________, had to submit to a polygraph test for employment at the Adolph Coors Company in Golden, Colorado. Of the many personal questions asked, the two listed below were particularly aggravating.

1. Are you a homosexual? 2. Do you know of any reason that you could be blackmailed?

I, Oliver A. D. __________, was hired by the Adolph Coors Company on October 23, 1972. Below are listed some of the questions I was asked on the lie detector while going through my screening for a job. Do you get along with your wife? What is your sex preference? Are you a communist? Do you have money in the bank? Have you ever stolen anything and was [sic] not caught at it? I feel that these questions were degrading and an invasion of my privacy. I also feel these questions are unnecessary for the Coors Company to ask of anyone seeking a job with them.

Coors executives responded to these allegations by saying that they did not know these alleged questions were being asked of their prospective employees. The polygraph questionnaires, they said, were administered by an outside agency which Coors had hired before 1975.

4

However, Coors was unwilling to give up using polygraph tests altogether. In 1960, a member of the Coors family had been kidnapped and killed. In August 1977, a bomb was planted in a Coors recycling plant. Chairman William Coors and his brother, Joseph Coors, both said they wanted to ensure that they did not hire someone who might again

endanger their families or their employees. In addition, the Coors brothers felt that the polygraph tests would reveal some information that the company should have:

[The tests reveal] whether the applicant may be hiding some health problem . . . [and ensure that] the applicant does not want the job for some subversive reason such as sabotaging our operation. [Statement of William Coors]

Coors therefore continued to use the polygraph test but formulated a standard questionnaire that the polygraph agency was to use in the preemployment examination. The new questionnaire consisted of seven question areas. Before a job applicant even made an appointment with the polygraph agency, the applicant was given a copy of the questions and was asked to review the questions carefully. If he had any hesitations about answering the questions on a lie detector, he was invited to discuss his problems with the employment staff. The seven questions were as follows:

1. Did you tell the complete truth on the employment application? 2. Have you ever used any form of illegal drug or narcotic on the job? 3. Has the use of alcohol frequently impaired your ability to perform on the job? 4. Are you concealing any information about subversive, revolutionary, or

communistic activity? 5. Are you applying for a job with this company so you can do it or any of its

employees harm? 6. Are you presently wanted by the authorities for a felony? 7. Have you ever stolen any kind of merchandise, material, or money from an

employer? 5

Coors assured each applicant that these were the only questions that he or she had to answer. The polygraph agency was to adhere to the questionnaire.

Although the wildcat strike ran out of steam and was abandoned, new problems forced Coors managers to reconsider its use of polygraphs. In 1985 and again in 1986 Congress began to consider bills preventing employers from requiring workers and job applicants to take polygraphs. The House passed a bill in March 1986 preventing the use of polygraphs except in unusual circumstances, but these efforts came to nothing when a similar bill did not make it through the Senate. Eighteen states, however, already prohibited or limited the use of polygraphs in business. Fearing that the tests would be outlawed, Coors managers decided to change their applicant tests. In August 1986 the company announced that it would no longer require polygraph tests of its job applicants. In place of the polygraph it would now require applicants to submit to a drug test, to a twelve-page psychological test called the Stanton Survey, which inquired into the applicant's attitude toward theft and dishonesty, and to a background check by Equifax Services, a national audit and loss-control company.

6

Coor's decision to use a drug test came on the heels of a report of the President's Commission on Organized Crime issued on March 3, 1986, that highlighted the use of illegal drugs in the United States and that recommended that government and private

businesses begin programs of testing their employees and job applicants for the use of drugs. On September 15 President Reagan signed an executive order requiring those federal employees who held "sensitive" posts to be tested for the use of illegal drugs. It was estimated that between 5 and 13 percent of American workers abused illegal drugs (marijuana was estimated to account for 95 percent of this abuse). In June 1984, a report of the Research Triangle Institute had estimated that the abuse of illegal drugs cost the U.S. $60 billion in 1983 alone; lost worker productivity accounted for $33 billion of these costs.

7 Employers felt that the use of drugs by employees affected their job performance,

their judgment, and their skills, and that it therefore lowered productivity and increased accidents.

The drug test used by Coors would be conducted at a private medical laboratory at a cost of $20 per test. Critics of the test were concerned because of the high error rate that the commonly used drug tests had exhibited. In 1985 the Center for Disease Control had found that of thirteen testing laboratories examined, only one correctly identified traces of cocaine at least 80 percent of the time, that tests for five other drugs were wrong more than half of the time, and that tests for certain drugs were wrong 100 percent of the time.

8

A Northwestern University study found that the most commonly used drug test, the EMIT urinalysis test developed by Syva, was wrong 25 percent of the times that it indicated drugs were present in a urine sample.

9 Over-the-counter drugs such as "Contac"

and "Sudafed" showed up as amphetamines; cough medicine containing dextromethorphan would show up as morphine; poppy seeds on pastries showed up as morphine; and the prescription drug Amoxicillin showed up as cocaine.

Critics were also concerned that the commonly used drug tests were invasions of privacy. The drug tests, they pointed out, did not show whether an employee was under the influence of drugs at the time of testing since drugs such as marijuana showed up in urine samples as long as one month after the drug was used. Nor did the tests show whether the employee's performance was in any way affected by drugs. Employers, critics argued, do not have a right to inquire into what the employee does during his or her private time; employers have a right to place requirements on employees only during their working hours and only such requirements as are directly related to job performance.

10

1 "Bitter Beercott," Time, 26 December 1977, p. 15.

2 Ibid.

3 Copies of these affidavits were obtained from Brewery Bottling, Can and Allied

Industrial Union-Local No. 366; 4510 Indiana Street, Golden, CO. 4 "Bitter Beercott."

5 A copy of the questionnaire was also obtained from Brewery Bottling, Can, and Allied

Industrial Union-Local No. 366. 6 "Three New Tests to Replace Coor's Traditional Polygraph," Oakland Tribune, 30

August 1986. 7 "Battling Drugs on the Job," Time, 27 January 1986, p. 43.

8 New York Times, 16 September 1986.

9 See Patricia A. Hunter, "Your Urine or Your Job," Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review,

19 (June 1986): 1451-93; Mark Rust, "Drug Testing," ABA Journal, 1 November 1986,

pp. 51-54. 10

Ibid.