Newspaper article with link:
Flight attendant accused of trying to smuggle much cocaine
http://www.wsj.com/articles/AP5e9c70b3601949aa807000fa5a811381
FLIGHT ATTENDANT ACCUSED OF TRYING TO SMUGGLE 68 POUNDS OF COCAINE AT LAX ARRESTED
http://abc13.com/news/flight-attendant-arrested-for-carrying-68-pounds-of-cocaine/1260246/
Summary of the article:
Sky Worker Accused in Smuggling Drugs
There is an article in the ABC News of March 24th, where a story of a flight attendant`s disclosure is described. The matter took place in Los Angeles International Airport, where Marsha Reynolds tried to smuggle nearly 70 pounds of cocaine. The woman was caught during the luggage check. When she realized there was no way out, she dropped the carry-on bags and tried to escape from the officers, but later surrendered to agents at Kennedy`s International Airport in New York City.
Marsha Reynolds was a JetBlue flight attendant, who used to be a beauty queen some years ago. She was asked to go aside by officers of Transportation Security Administration, as there was something wrong with the random screening. The woman is offended with federal narcotics trafficking and has the appointment with U.S. District Court in Brooklyn. The drug runner can get 10 years to live in imprisonment if convicted.
This case is the example of the necessity to educate employees to watch their co-workers in order to exclude all contingencies. Airport officers have to check every passenger and his luggage to prevent possible problems.
Analysis1:
Human resource management towards aviation expresses in providing the safest flights for passengers and staff. Employees should have the qualitative work and well equipped places of working. The employers have to provide the policy of obligatory awareness of professionalism and faculty guidelines that prohibits any kind of drugs. The realization of such a policy is the responsibility of the Human Resources Department. This department is like a liaison between employees as suspenders and employers as prosecutors, as Human Resource management fully comply with legislation – safety, health, employment and workplace as the ones applicable in the jurisdiction in which organization runs. Human Resources have to coordinate the administration of the procedures and regulations that are identified in a company. The representatives of Human Resource Management are contacted with for helping in implementing the policy of awareness.
Human Resources had to settle the situation, which happened in the Airport of Los Angeles by means of providing a call for educational purposes to every employee on board and in the airport. Secondly, they had to see into the definite case of smuggling drugs and devise a plan of its elimination. They also had to pass the suspender to the representatives of legislation in order to suppress any thoughts of relapse.
Analysis 2:
It is a well-known fact, that drugs give great impact on the workplace: they slower the movements and reaction, cause headaches and extreme tiredness, which could cause some problems on board if taking the matter with Marsha Reynolds. Who knows if she was just a drug runner or took the narcotics she carried. This issue could be prevented in the airline company spent more time preparing their workers for the real conditions. Employees education is the possible way to set a limit of impudence – the flight attendant took too much responsibility of feeling free to pass drugs in carry-on bags. An effective program dealing with drug testing of a potential employee should be implemented at each workplace. During the educational conversations the consequences for noncompliance of the rules have to be explained. Regular checks on alcohol and drug addiction should be made.
It will be not a bad idea if the captain of the plane or coordinators independently inspect the staff`s things in order to prevent such cases. According to OSHA`s study (2004), nearly 70% of all drug addicted, have a job and spend active lives in the workplace. Such high rates can be results of hard work, which is large amounted and urgent, requires lots of efforts and patience. People just give up and let their lives go without any direction. The occupation of flight attendant is not an exception – employees are responsible for people`s lives on board as well as pilots. They care about the comfort and satisfaction of all passengers` needs.
There are some programs that are to control and improve the behavior of an employee. The benefits such as reduced theft at workplace, increased productivity and morale and decreased level of accidents and low costs of insurance as employees` compensation will assure not only the success of a company, but individual improvement of a person (qtd. in Patterson).
Random testing is another way to check the employee`s awareness of drugs prohibition. When one is hired, he will not probably go through drug testing again. Annual tests are not so effective, as they are expected, but if an employer decides to conduct a random drug checking, the results will surprise him a lot, as the workers have no time to change the way they live and habits that were accumulated by years (qtd. in Perry, 2011). The random tests can be held informally – the more employers know their subordinates, the sooner they will find out if the person has changed for the worse.
Relevance to the course:
Drug testing is an important part of a correct working process of every industry. Only having a well-established system of harmonious work, a company succeeds and evolves in a huge and mighty business. We have to learn how to react in such situations for being aware of any working issue. The case examined was about a stewardess, who tried to smuggle a large amount of drugs, but was seized during check-in. Such an issue is not unusual, but it has to be prevented or stopped. According to the discussions of the course, we can say that such situations develop our outlook and teach us to analyze articles relating to employment law. The problem of drug testing is not a new one, but with the time passes by, it appears to be isolated accidents than it was mass problems. With enough knowledge we are able to set a limit to employees in their responsibilities and liberties. Each worker has to be tested well while hiring in order not to ruin the reputation of the company for which he works or crossing his own career.
Human resource management has a great potential to regularize any extraordinary situation, as it provides strict demands in choosing qualified employees without any propensity or addiction to drugs. If the accident happened, it has to be regulated following the law. Every person should honor the principles of discipline that were accumulated by centuries and come after those, who are to lead them.
References
“FLIGHT ATTENDANT ACCUSED OF TRYING TO SMUGGLE 68 POUNDS OF COCAINE AT LAX ARRESTED”. (March 24, 2016). Eyewitness news. ABC. Accessed April 7, 2016. Retrieved from http://abc13.com/news/flight-attendant-arrested-for-carrying-68-pounds-of-cocaine/1260246/
“HR Policies & Employment Legislation”. Standard 1.2 of HR Management Standards. Hrcouncil. Accessed April 7, 2016. Retrieved from http://hrcouncil.ca/hr-toolkit/policies-guideline.cfm
Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). OSHA Archive. United States Department of Labor. Retrieved from https://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_table=INTERPRETATIONS&p_id=22577
Patterson, Eric. Workplace Drug Abuse. DrugAbuse. Accessed April 7, 2016. Retrieved from http://drugabuse.com/library/workplace-drug-abuse/
Perry, Phillip. (June 2011). How to Deal With Workplace Drug Abuse. AQUA Magazine. Accessed April 7, 2016. Retrieved from http://aquamagazine.com/how-to-deal-with-workplace-drug-abuse.html
