Open letter from a rig worker..............urine tests..................benefits

Hi guys

I came across this and thought hmmmmmmmmmmmm makes a lot of sense

Just thought I'd share it

The Urine test (This was written by a rig worker in the North Sea )


I work, they pay me. I pay my taxes and the government distributes my taxes as it sees fit.
In order to earn that pay cheque, I work on a rig for a drilling contractor.
I am required to pass a random urine test for drugs and alcohol, with which I have no problem.
What I do have a problem with is the distribution of my taxes to people who don't have to pass a urine test.
Shouldn't one have to pass a urine test to get a benefits cheque because I have to pass one to earn it for them?
Please understand that I have no problem with helping people get back on their feet.
I do on the other hand have a problem with helping someone sit on their arse drinking beer and smoking .
Could you imagine how much money the government would save if people had to pass a urine test to get a benefit cheque?
Please pass this along if you agree or simply delete it if you don't.
Hope you will pass it along though, because something has to change in the UK , and soon!

Sometimes the answer is simple when you sign on, a quick blood or urine test or no benifits. Fail ther test no benefits.

And before we all bang on about the costs of testing, etc. etc. etc.

It's just a good idea that really should be thought about IMHO

Cody

reply to post by cody599


Some people would be happy to lose all freedoms. They will not stop until they have a nanny state.

People could mislead anyway, just like as they do at kaliedoscope clinics.

reply to post by cody599


Drug tests are for the companies' liability. It benefits them to have sober workers.

Drug tests for welfare participants would cost too much, and there are no individual companies that would pay for them like job related tests.

So, the amount of money saved by not distributing it to drug addicts is probably equal to the amount of money needed to be spent on the tests themselves. There's really a neutral return for the only benefactor in the whole equation, the Government.

Alot of work, and a neutral return. You really think that's gonna happen?

Besides, didn't you see Florida try out the welfare drug test experiment? Only 1% of welfare participants in the entire state actually failed the tests.

Fail.

reply to post by Kody27


Well with all due respect
I don't live in Florida, I live in a deprived area north of London with plenty of unemployment, I am lucky enough to have a job as is my wife.

I can count on one hand the amount of people that work for a living in 3 blocks of flats (around 60 adults)
But those that don't work always have enough money for alcohol, cigarettes and various other things.

Benefits are supposed you help you survive NOT be able to afford aforementioned.

When I get home from work I can guarantee to see drunks etc. that have not worked since I moved here 8 years ago

Something has to be done

Cody

Kody27
reply to post by cody599

 

Drug tests are for the companies' liability. It benefits them to have sober workers.

Drug tests for welfare participants would cost too much, and there are no individual companies that would pay for them like job related tests.

So, the amount of money saved by not distributing it to drug addicts is probably equal to the amount of money needed to be spent on the tests themselves. There's really a neutral return for the only benefactor in the whole equation, the Government.

Alot of work, and a neutral return. You really think that's gonna happen?

Besides, didn't you see Florida try out the welfare drug test experiment? Only 1% of welfare participants in the entire state actually failed the tests.

Fail.

Yea, because a big percentage knows how to cheat the test. Urine test are very easy to beat. I'd guarantee those results would be different if hair samples was used.

No, you fail.

Pladuim

reply to post by InkontinentiaBouquet


It isn't about losing freedoms

It's about the state not rewarding for not making any effort to contribute to society

Cody

reply to post by cody599


Random testing was performed on recipients here in the State of Ohio last year.

Less than 2% failed the tests, which is great.

And Then. .. .

They discovered that recipients were eating Sure-Gel before their tests. which produced clean drug screens.

Go figure that someone would have had to come up with a way to cheat the system.

Prob more dangerous for oil rig workers to be hammered.

reply to post by Kody27


Yup. Look at what they did in Florida. The company running the tests was linked to the Gov.'s wife. Hmmmm... even after testing people, hardly any of them failed.

Drug tests are SO EASY to fake. Even the kind when the guy sits in the room and watches you pee.

The tests are a joke, and due to the T&C's I won't get into any kind of discussion about how much of a joke they are. I've had to have them for jobs in in the past, and I only had to have ONE when I first started. I worked heavy industrial construction too. I never heard of anyone getting a "random".

The only time my fellow oil workers would get drug tested is if there was an accident, for liability reasons.

If they want to really make drug tests for public assistance work, they'd need to do hair or blood tests.

It's pretty hard to fake a hair test.

Urine tests are a worthless money making scheme to cover the behinds of corporations and make other people insane profits. Quite genius actually.

The strips they use to test for drugs are very cheap. Unless you pop positive, they won't run it through the expensive machine (it costs to much to do it for everyone).

ETA: The half life of most of the drugs they test for are 72 hours max (except for one, we all know what that one is). So, IMO urine tests unfairly target a specific subset of people.

reply to post by MystikMushroom


I also work in the oil field. I have had 5 random urine tests already this year, and if you don't do drugs there is nothing to worry about.

reply to post by Pladuim


I don't work up on the field anymore, and I was never a "roughneck", but I did work on gathering centers. I never knew anyone to get a random, we were told if you got into an accident you'd have one.

I also wasn't an operator. I could see those guys getting drug tested fairly regularly.

Like I said though, the half life for nearly all the drugs tested for (except ONE) is about 72 hours. If you're working 2 weeks on and 2 weeks off, you probably would get away with it.

Cody, I'd urge you to consider a couple factors which play central to the issue.

First, this has been tried and is in effect in other areas of life with very poor result overall. Schools and Industry both have such things and usually starting with the declaration of catching druggies....to find through enormous expense, there aren't near as many as suspected or as many dumb enough to fail the tests. Whichever the case may be.

Second, when we talk of social benefit recipients, we're talking about what generally represents the most desperate in life, and usually a cause/effect to why the drugs are there in the first place.

Is cutting benefits and taking the last things in life worth losing....to the most desperate among society as it is, a wise move? What would we expect the result to be...as the masses, some think would be caught, are ejected from housing....cut off from food...and generally told to have a nice life, however much longer they can keep breathing.

I'd expect crime, generally something even those on benefits try and avoid in general terms (look at #'s ON benefits vs. total crimes committed. The stats are self evident to that truth, even if 100% of those committing them were benefit people) to skyrocket. Take a man's food with hungry kids? There is absolutely NOTHING in life that man won't do to insure the kids stop being hungry. Killing whomever it takes to get that food...eventually...is part of what we can absolutely expect to see happen in that approach, IMO.

Is it worth saving a few billion in a 5-6 trillion dollar budget?

This comes as a BIG plus one from the UK. +1 +1 +1

Absolutely right, the money one gets for benefits is to stay alive not to party all day taking drugs and drinking!

Secondly if they get enough to eat sleep and live - AND buy drugs+alcohol, arnt they getting too much benefit money?!

cody599
reply to post by Kody27

 

Well with all due respect
I don't live in Florida, I live in a deprived area north of London with plenty of unemployment, I am lucky enough to have a job as is my wife.

I LIVE in Florida and that test was a complete waste of money. It's ok for people to be high as a kite on legal drugs aka pharmaceuticals but heaven for bid you use a plant to alleviate pain and discomfort. The whole "welfare recipients are lazy drug abusers who do nothing but sit on their rear and do drugs and suck the system" is just flat out crap and a stereo type. I know many people who get assistance now that never had to before and they don't do any drugs and are not lazy people. FL is bad for jobs, it's a tourist state and well even the tourists aren't coming here like they use to. Every year I see less and less "Snow Birds" come here. We call them snow birds. lol Those snow birds helped our economy when they came and many businesses relied on them and now many businesses have had to close or downsize due to not enough business. Heck even our malls are dead now where usually they'd be full of people this time of year.

Are there those who do abuse the system? Yes but in all honesty they make it far too easy to abuse the system which makes me wonder what kind of kick backs they get for people being on welfare. If they didn't want people to abuse the system then maybe they should make their sign up process more difficult and actually check references, jobs and income. You can say whatever you want on their application they don't verify any of it. Sure your job has to sign something but they could lie and some do. The system is broken.

I can count on one hand the amount of people that work for a living in 3 blocks of flats (around 60 adults)
But those that don't work always have enough money for alcohol, cigarettes and various other things.

Why do you care what other people are doing with their money? Who gives a crap. If they aren't working and have money and choose to buy alcohol or cigs then so what. It's their life, their choice. Just because you don't agree with it doesn't mean it's wrong. I am sure there are things in your life those same people would disagree with.

Benefits are supposed you help you survive NOT be able to afford aforementioned.

IF your benefit system allows those things to be purchased then it's your systems fault. I know here you can't buy those things with assistance programs, it will not allow you.

When I get home from work I can guarantee to see drunks etc. that have not worked since I moved here 8 years ago

Something has to be done

Cody

How do you now they don't work? You just assume they don't because of what? If you are gone all day working then how do you know they don't work? How do you know every single persons money situation? Stop worrying about others and just worry about yourself.

Pladuim

Kody27
reply to post by cody599

 

Drug tests are for the companies' liability. It benefits them to have sober workers.

Drug tests for welfare participants would cost too much, and there are no individual companies that would pay for them like job related tests.

So, the amount of money saved by not distributing it to drug addicts is probably equal to the amount of money needed to be spent on the tests themselves. There's really a neutral return for the only benefactor in the whole equation, the Government.

Alot of work, and a neutral return. You really think that's gonna happen?

Besides, didn't you see Florida try out the welfare drug test experiment? Only 1% of welfare participants in the entire state actually failed the tests.

Fail.

Yea, because a big percentage knows how to cheat the test. Urine test are very easy to beat. I'd guarantee those results would be different if hair samples was used.

No, you fail.

Pladuim

Because pee tests are cheap and hair tests are very expensive. Who's gonna pay for those again?
And what exactly is gonna offset the costs? Where is the incentive for the Government again?

Try again Failtard McGhee. Actually, don't.

reply to post by Kody27

Hey now.... Hair tests I'd support if Congress bellied on up to the medical trailer first to donate a lock of their fur. Lets see what the "Good Gentlemen" from each of our states have been up to in their spare time and as public servants, I want public results. Period.

If they did that...and did it by hair, all handled by normal folks insuring the thing wasn't a rigged joke? Hey, then I might listen to another way to screw with the poor and make people even more miserable than already exist, eh? 100% medically proven clean with the timeline hair carries? Okay...I'd believe a % of our leaders themselves aren't high or drunk.

Oh...and Alcohol breath tests at the chamber door before entering the House or Senate chambers for business by members. No more 3 cocktail lunches with the lobbyists, while handling the People's business.

....and this is why testing always seems to be for narrow segments of society everyone can dump on or say are special exceptions.

reply to post by cody599


Two wrongs don't make a right. Wait... "Wrongs"... Oh yeah. So.. the reason rig workers have to do urine tests is because the coc aine culture associated with roughnecks. The long hours and physical demands... and the extremely dangerous type of work they are doing, a small error, and someone loses their life or hands. The real reason though, is that the contractors pay a ton less on their insurance if they piss test everyone.

So you are comparing apples to oranges.

Some old lady on disability or dare I say it, (even) welfare, so she doesn't get her check because she ate a poppy seed bagel and set off a false positive. Or she got prescribed a new medicine by the doctor and it turns out to be a (legal) narcotic, so she has her payments stopped until she can sort it out and prove, etc, etc.

Nah....

How about just addressing the widespread fraud in welfare checks, without making it hard on people who actually need it.

I don't get it, I see people pulling up in Range Rovers cashing their welfare check, but then another dozen or so people with families really struggling, and for some reason the second half keep getting their checks cut off or delayed, suspended, while the ones who clearly don't need it somehow manage to get by unscathed.

reply to post by wrabbit2000


wrabbit

You are one of the members here that I most respect for well thought out answers and opinions and always welcome your input into any thread or post I write


As I look out of my window smoking a well earned cigarette, I gaze upon those I call the lost. Those that have never worked because they have never had to, never been taught work ethic or had to make an effort to earn a living.

I hear and see single parents speaking to their kids in a manner that would get them an instant ban here. If I were to tell you, it would result in an instant 500 point fine minimum.

My heart bleeds for the kids around here, so much potential and yet all driven into the ground under the high heel of a half drunk parent.

Should the benefits be withheld ?

If the money goes into helping the kids realise their worth and force the parents earn the right to be a parent (harsh I know) then I say yes.

It's all too easy too get drunk and get laid and have a kid around here, I do believe Pulp summed it up in their song common people,

"You'll never fail like common people,
Never watch your mind slide out of view
And then dance and drink and screw
Because there's nothing else to do"

I suppose I'm saying cut out the middle man and assist those those that would actually benefit from them.

The crime that would ensue ? I'm afraid I don't have an answer for that per-say.

But one would hope the thought of being a parent to your child would inspire change

Utopian ? I guess so to an extent.

But as long as I see kids suffer because parents can afford to do other than support them then cut the benefits.

Of course I've shot myself in the foot so to speak by making the assumption these people actually want to remain as parents.

It's the dad in me

Cody

reply to post by mblahnikluver

How do you now they don't work? You just assume they don't because of what? If you are gone all day working then how do you know they don't work? How do you know every single persons money situation? Stop worrying about others and just worry about yourself.

Because I was unemployed for a year and got to know them.

The major difference was that I was actively looking for work the phrase "Do you want fries with that?" suddenly became a very attractive phrase to me, it meant earning.

And that would have been better than spending time with energy leeches.

Cody