‘Profoundly disturbing, quite creepy’: Employers must stop testing workers’ blood, says union

Electrical workers across Australia are often subjected to mandatory blood testing from their employers, calling into question if this act is an ethical practice or a straight up breach of privacy laws.

The Centre for Future Work at the Australia Institute has offered a report, No Blood-No Job: Australia’s privacy laws and workers’ rights, authored by Dr Lisa Heap, which touches on how a number of Australian organisations are using blood analysis as a means of screening future employees for “health implications”.

The report questions whether this practice is ethical, moral, or legal, as collecting sensitive information from blood analysis is restricted under Australia’s privacy laws. The reasoning for the restriction is quite clear, as the mishandling of this information can have a substantial detrimental impact on the individual who provided the blood.

As the surveillance of employees continues to grow, with fingerprints and facial recognition software being recent examples, the collection of data must be deterred now before the lines are completely blurred and collecting sensitive information from workers becomes the new normal.

“The protection from arbitrary interference with a person’s privacy is a fundamental human right. Interfering with this right, by collecting sensitive personal information, should occur in limited circumstances and only where necessary,” Heap said.

“However, this report shows that some organisations in Australia are not treating the collection of sensitive information from workers as an exception. They are collecting sensitive information as a routine step in their employment processes.”

The potential for discrimination in practices like this is immense, especially in the hiring process.

Electrical Trades Union of Australia (ETU) and its secretary, Michael Wright, were disgusted with this practice and expressed that no boss had the right to demand blood from their workers.

“When we go to work, we are being paid for our time and our skills, not our blood and our private medical data,” Wright said.

“It is profoundly disturbing that employers are requiring people to submit vials of their own blood to even be considered for employment.”

“These tests are taken without a clear rationale and are accompanied by waivers that let employers, their partners and subsidiaries use workers’ blood samples and private medical information for any purpose, anywhere in the world, any time they want.”

The report called for amendments to Australian privacy laws, which are currently being considered by the government, with reforms likely to be put in front of the Australian Parliament before the end of 2024.

The ETU echoed this sentiment, calling on the Attorney-General directly to make such changes:

“We are calling on the Attorney-General to urgently make sensible updates to the Privacy Act to prevent this abhorrent and unethical practice. It is one thing to require tests that ensure people are not impaired by drugs or alcohol at work.”

“That is quite separate to the mass extraction of bodily fluids and analysis of them for private medical information as a precondition to employment.”

“The practice is unethical, unnecessary and frankly, quite creepy. The government should ban it before it spreads,” said Wright.