Air Canada allowed to test flight attendant's hair strand for pot

A federal labour arbitrator has given Air Canada the green light to test a strand of a flight attendant's hair for drugs after two of the man's housemates — and fellow employees — claimed he was smoking a bong and making jokes about hijacking.

According to a decision posted last week, the flight attendant — known as CB — was expelled from a home housing 14 Air Canada employees, following a group meeting prompted by his behaviour.

Two of CB's fellow cabin crew members wrote reports which made their way to a Vancouver-based service director manager for Air Canada — sparking a request for a strand of CB's hair along with a battle between the airline and the Canadian Union of Public Employees.

The decision provides a window into the lives and responsibilities of the cabin crew members tasked with looking after the safety of passengers on the country's largest airline.

It also highlights the question of hair strand testing — which the union was already in the process of grieving when CB's situation arose.

Arbitrator William Kaplan was called in after CB had already volunteered a strand of his hair on April 18 for "reasonable cause substance testing."

The union filed what Kaplan called an "extraordinary" motion to prohibit Air Canada from relying on any information revealed by the test until CB got a chance to challenge the request.

CB booked off sick in March and was slated to return to work in mid-April.

But his housemates gathered on March 29, voting to kick him out of the shared home as of May 1 and encouraging CB to seek help through the company's employee assistance program.

Unbeknownst to the union or CB, two of them also wrote letters to a supervisor.

"[He] seemed dazed every other day and appeared to be under the influence of substances,'" Kaplan wrote, describing one complaint.

"According to this crew member, [CB] made some disturbing reference to hijacking a plane (albeit 'with the intention of dark humour, but it still raised safety concerns')."

Kaplan said the second crew member said CB owned a bong, was using it to smoke pot and was "reported to have said that if he was caught by the company — using marijuana — that he had other work options available (and he also referred to hijacking a plane, again 'with dark humour')."

Hair strand testing can detect substance use in the past three months — as opposed to saliva testing which can only determine very recent consumption and urine testing which can detect pot use in the last seven days.