These tests are administered to try and project what kind of long term employee someone would be. If they´re habitual drinkers,chances are they´d have high absenteeism rates.

A story about 6 months ago showed union workers on the freedom tower in Ny would go out and get smashed on their lunch.A drinking problem doesn´t fall under the disabilities act,i don´t think because it´s a self inflicted disease.

More than job attendance, #1, it´s about on the job safety.

I´m with #2.

Drinking on the job for construction union workers USED to be a tradition. But in most situations, not allowed anymore.

America has become a nation of twittering, tsk tsking old nannies. In pre rustbelt America, when men made things in hot, dirty, dangerous factories, EVERY factory had a bar, or two or three, across the street where some of the men routinely drank their lunch. Some of these men had fingers missing from running punch presses, or scars from other accidents. They showered in the factories after their shift and left their dirty work clothes in lockers rather than track it all home. They were used up by the time they were 55, but glad to have the good paying factory jobs rather than the back-breaking farm work many left behind. A beer or two at lunch was not too much to ask, and no one would think of depriving them of it.

#4, that was before OSHA, worker´s comp insurance and the EEOC. No employer can afford to take those chances today.

I worked on a union project in the early seventies in northern MN doing concrete forming/carlpentry. Payday was on Wednesday and the steelworkers would congregate around the cutting torch cart every Thursday morning to cure their hangovers with large doses of pure oxygen.

Since this is such a litegious society #4, they are also trying to avoid frivolous lawsuits by drunk employees who injure themselves and blame the company.

Too bad the judge didn´t reprimand the silly EEOC attorney and allow US Steel to recover all legal costs from the EEOC´s budget.
This lawsuit, courtesy of the same idjits who are threatening to sue companies who use pre-hiring background checks of job applicants to weed out felons and ex-cons. Discrimination there too, doncha know?
Ted Kennedy´s ADA is one of the worse pieces of legislation in the last 80 years. It is overly broad, vague, and subject to administrative interpretation without common sense. It allows government agencies to claim disability discrimination when there is none and to throw the full force of the government on whoever they choose.

You have to realize that the EEOC is a rogue organization. Some silly lawsuits came out of Ronald Reagan´s presidency, unconnected to the administration, or even to the head of the EEOC, Clarence Thomas.

The EEOC, remember, sued the City of San Antonio, back in the 1980s, for rejecting police applicants with felony records. The EEOC argued that disproportionate black applicants were rejected because blacks have higher felony record incidences.
the EEOC lost.
The EEOC sued a small lamp manufacturer in Chicago, during the 1980s, for hiring too many mexican americans and not enough blacks. The Company hired from the neighborhood, which was located in an hispanic area.
And the funniest of all was the EEOC lawsuit against Hooters for failing to hire men as servers. Hooters struck back by putting up billboards of a mustached middle aged man in a hooters server T shirt.
The EEOC gave up.
Important to consider is that the EEOC, with a flock of attorneys, can crush a small company, just in legal fees. So alot of companies simple cave in to ridiculous demands.

The EEOC is also making it illegal not to hire convicted criminals. The inmates are in charge of the asylum.

Just because DC´s standard includes (demands?) drunks, felons, liars and hardened criminals doesn´t mean everyone else has to lower their standards

I am for testing all employees, including federal employees like Zippy.