From 26 October, changes to the Occupational Health and Safety Act allow employers in Estonia to test their staff for intoxication, ERR News reports, citing the Labour Inspectorate. The inspectorate stresses that this does not mean a breathalyser at the start of every working day.
Under the new rules a test is allowed when there are reasonable grounds for suspicion, for example when an employee behaves unusually or slurs their speech. Workplaces where intoxication could have particularly serious consequences are the exception: where an employee operates potentially hazardous equipment or works in a hazardous environment, the employer may test without a specific suspicion. ERR names bus and truck drivers, operators of dangerous machinery and construction workers as examples.
Employers cannot test at their own discretion. Before any test they must establish written procedures and inform all employees of them. The procedures have to set out how the test is carried out, what counts as a positive result, what follows from it and what happens if an employee refuses. Employees must be able to challenge a result, and the employer may keep the test data for up to three years from the date of the test.
The aim of the amendment, according to the report, is to prevent workplace accidents and to protect employees, their colleagues and others. The Labour Inspectorate emphasises, the report says, that the purpose of intoxication testing must be to ensure workplace safety, not to subject employees to unjustified checks
.
Source: ERR News, . The text above is our own summary; the words in quotation marks are the source's.
What this means for an Estonian entrepreneur
An Estonian company that wants to use the new right has to put written testing procedures in place and inform its employees before the first test. Because test results are kept for up to three years, the company should also record this processing of employee data in its data protection documents and decide who may see the results.
We prepare the record of processing activities, the privacy notice and the internal data protection rules of an Estonian company. GDPR compliance documentation