Bermuda Industrial Union would support.

Random drug testing in the workplace is being studied by the BIU, said president Mr. Ottiwell Simmons MP.

A committee headed by Dr. Barbara Ball has yet to recommend whether the union should support random drug testing, he said.

"We are keen in the union to do whatever we can to eradicate drugs not only from the workplace, but from the community as well,'' he said. "Drugs are an absolute menace to the Country.'' At a meeting on the weekend, Transport Minister the Hon. Maxwell Burgess voiced support for mandatory drug testing for operators of all public vehicles, including buses, ferries, and taxis.

"The PTB (Public Transportation Board) have been doing it on a voluntary basis and the BIU have been quite helpful,'' Mr. Burgess said. "We need to go further.'' While stressing that random drug testing was still being studied, Mr. Simmons said: "I would think it should only take place if there are strong suspicions, and some evidence to back up those suspicions, that in a given place of employment there are people flirting with drugs.

"If you go to a monastery, for example, one would not expect to have someone running around with little test tubes testing the monks for drugs.'' Speaking recently in the House of Assembly, Health and Social Services Minister the Hon. Quinton Edness advocated mandatory workplace drug testing which would be much less selective.

He noted that many workers, like Airport employees, truck and bus drivers, and ferry operators, "have lives in their hands''.

But he did not propose that drug testing be limited to those occupations. "We have to have every employee, employer and union included in a national drug programme, including testing.'' Mr. Edness said.

Mr. Simmons said that in most of the BIU, "there is no compelling evidence to say we have an acute drug problem within the workplace''.

Underling the union's concern about drugs, Mr. Simmons noted that the theme of Labour Day two years ago was "Labour for a Drug-free Society''.

And the BIU's policy is that if a worker is disciplined by an employer for using illicit drugs, "they need not come to the union for representation''.

The BIU is "against illicit drugs, for the damage they do to the individual, the family, and the community,'' he said.