Should I report my suspicions?

[MaryRoze]

I'll preface this by saying I don't like this guy- he's a lazy bastard. I'm trying not to let this cloud my judgement though.

We have a contractor who I suspect is coming to work under the influence. He's frequently late, sometimes looks absolutely terrible, disappears multiple times during the day. I brought this up with his boss and he agreed to give him his notice to leave. So, he's leaving end of September/beginning of October anyway.

During the course of this conversation with his boss, he made just an off-handed comment "I think he's a drinker".

I didn't think anything of it until I heard him wretching/throwing up in the bathroom on Friday. Now I'm adding 2 + 2 and coming up with 5.

We've got a zero tolerance drug and alcohol policy, and this contractor is going to be responsible for a huge high risk operation in a few days time. If something goes wrong / he hasn't planned it properly due to being under the influence, this could end in fatalities.

What do I do?

YABU - he's leaving anyway. double check his plan for the high risk activity and let him get on with it.

YANBU - this is too dangerous to ignore. report.

Who would you report it to ? Would this be ‘their’ decision as to whether he continues ? Would be put lives at risk ? If is judgement it impaired through illness or alcohol surely the answer is simple , report

If your boss has identified that the guy is a drinker, why isn't he too be thinking about safety concerns during this high risk project? Coming to work with a high blood alcohol level could be catastrophic.
Likewise, if he's regularly vomiting while at work, is he actually fit to carry out this major task? What if he's sick at a critical point? Occy Health should be involved here.
You and your boss both have a duty of care to deal with this. No question.
If you're still in two minds, imagine the court case in a year's time.

In that case you might want to brush up on what the health and safety legislation says about who will be held legally responsible if things do go wrong.

I have some experience in this area and agree drug and alcohol abuse is rife in construction. What is it with scaffolders and ketamine for example. They seem all to be on it and half of them dealing it. Constant stream of scaffolders going down for possession with intent to supply.

It's this contractors boss who made the comment to me. Nobody else in my company is aware of it, or the vomiting on the job.

But they're still putting people's lives in his hands?

You have with cause testing.

His manager thinks he's a drinker.

His manager is letting everyone down by not testing.

Please report and also highlight the manager is not following process.

Yes, the client is. Hence me wanting to report it.

I cannot stress this enough, PLEASE report it OP.

I will. Thank you.

What sort of company puts a big project in the hands of someone that’s been sacked and is due to leave shortly. That’s a huge risk!!

OP are you Bristol way?

By ‘drinker’ I assumed alcoholic, due to disappearing several times a day, vomiting etc.

You have to call this out but why the fuck is he still responsible for delivering something so critical? At the very least someone should now be reviewing/shadowing his work, can’t someone else now head up the project or side by side delivery.

If he is battling with sobriety or a heavy drinker what’s his incentive/motivation to not have even bigger sessions the night before work, when he is leaving anyhow? Surely the best outcome for all would be him to handover work, get paid off to go now.

Just to clear up confusion, the project itself isn't high risk in terms of day to day activity. It's actually very low risk. This activity happening next week is high risk, and ive already told them I'll jump in and oversee it.

If he was an alcoholic I don’t think he would be vomiting- I think that’s more for people whose bodies aren’t used to that level of abuse.Personally I think it’s more likely to be a really bad illness.

Almost 20 years ago when I moved to London for a bit I went into a house share with some Australian couples who seemed like fun - the guys turned out to be massive druggies! They were carpenters who took things like Ketamine in the evenings (the girls barely drank and cleaned up after their partners) - they left for work at 6am - we would come home in the evening and find them slumped unable to converse or super hyper off their heads but if we went into the kitchen at 6am they were always bright and chatty, you wouldn’t know their lifestyle - I asked them how they were so full of beans after so little sleep and they said they took some uppers. The scary thing is they were carpenters going out to work with heavy machinery! My uncle worked with an alcoholic for decades, didn’t know until the cracks in his work started to appear. Addicts are good at hiding addiction- I think the poor guy could be very sick.

Balancep the risk of this contractor working his notice with the benefit then you need to report him immediately because of a danger to life.

Don't hesitate, report him now, he has to leave and not return.

The company he's contracted from needs to replace him urgently.

Do a drugs and alcohol screening of everyone on site - a surprise one. This is a massive H&S fail if you allow it to go ahead. What is your A&D policy?

If this man isn't a drinker and is, in fact, seriously ill, and trying to continue to work for the sake of his family, then he should still be reported because he's not capable of overseeing such a critical project. He needs support from his employer, not censure.

Speak to your boss about your concerns, after all it was him who said he thought the bloke had a drinking problem, didn't he? Tell him you heard him being sick in the toilets. Lives are at risk here.

I mean it's not your issue but I'm surprised he hasn't been put on gardening leave or the supervision for this last critical bit handed over to someone else

Thank you everyone. I'll trigger a with-cauae drug test tomorrow and take it from there.

If there is a fatality and you didn't report, how would you feel?

Report him.

Edited - cross-posted.

OP even if the client is ultimately responsible, everyone involved will be drawn into the investigation and you would be personally culpable to a degree because you knew the contractor posed a risk and didn’t do anything.

I used to work in a gold/silver/bronze role for critical incidents as part of a previous job and the test for us was always: would your decision stand up to cross examination. Imagine a barrister standing opposite you in a corporate homicide case asking why you didn’t report your suspicions. Would your answer be good enough to save you?

This is why you need to brush up. As you're going to be in supervisory position on this you, personally, could be on the hook for anything that goes wrong.

I'd recommend looking at the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 (sections 2,3 7 and 37), Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 (Regs 3,5 and 8) and Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 (section 1).