The employer is not allowed to command the alcohol test, says EK’s expert doctor

Employer does not become aware of the results of an alcohol test for an employee in occupational health, says an expert doctor of the Confederation of Finnish Industries (EK) Auli Rytivaara.

The so-called PETH tests became a topic of talk when the ACP and Finnish Trade Union Society SAK said In the ACT magazinethat they are widely used in workers’ health examinations. According to the unions, the test results have been banned from driving and even redundant workers.

Since then, the tests also reported General and Helsingin Sanomat.

The tests depict the 2-4 weeks before the use of alcohol, but do not tell when alcohol has been consumed.

EK According to Rytivaara, there is now a misunderstanding in public that the employer would know about the results of the test for the employee. Such information on occupational health will not be disclosed.

« The occupational physician makes an overall assessment of the person’s ability to work for the job in question, taking into account potential security risks. The doctor will make an opinion on the assessment and this statement will be submitted to the employer. The test does not go to the employer, » says Rytivaara.

According to Rytivaara, only as part of an occupational health doctor’s assessment is utilized.

Also the Automobile and Transport Workers’ Union ACP’s Advocacy Manager Harri Pasanen It is of the opinion that the results of alcohol tests have not been provided to employers, but for example, occupational health doctors have, for example, ordered workers to ban. In some cases, the doctor has stated that working capacity was impaired and imposed on sick leave, but no wage has been paid, says Pasanen.

Labor law emeritus professor Seppo Koskinen estimates HS In the interview, there would be no legal basis for alcohol tests. By law on the protection of privacy in working life there is Own number of drug tests, but not alcohol tests.

According to Rytivaara, EK, things are not completely proportional to each other. On certain criteria, the employer may require an employee for a drug test, but employers cannot carry out alcohol tests or send an employee to the PETH test. They will be decided in health care, he says.

« If the employer suspects that the employee does not cope with his or her duties for health reasons, he or she will send a person to occupational health care for work capacity assessment and defines what kind of tests will be done. »

According to Rytivaara, employers do not define the content of health checks.

Employees are obliged to participate in medical examinations when the work involves a particular risk of illness or the job sets special requirements for the employee’s health. Special requirements are based on a risk assessment made by the employer and the workplace survey after that, but even then the content of health examinations is determined by occupational health care, says Rytivaara.

Emeritus professor Seppo Koskinen It still believes that testing employees with PETH tests is legally problematic.

In his view, it does not matter whether the employer or occupational health care will decide on the subject of an alcohol test: The test violates privacy in any case.

“Occupational health care has not been given the right to take an alcohol test,” says Koskinen.

Koskinen says that the will already expressed by Parliament in 2004 is that the alcohol test would be regulated by law. So far, the law has not been achieved.

Correction 10.6. at 4:11 p.m. The main picture of the story was previously the wrong Seppo Koskinen. Image changed to correct.