KEY POINTS:
The silly season is fast approaching, but before embarking on a round of pre-Christmas boozy lunches, check what your contract says about drinking on the job.
Your entitlement to those seasonal drinks may be not as straightforward as you think.
A survey of New Zealanders' drinking habits in 2000 found that men drank 5 per cent of their total alcohol consumption at work. For women the figure was 2 per cent.
In another survey in 2004, 15 per cent of drinkers said they had felt the effects of alcohol while at work, studying or doing housework in the previous year.
Simpson Grierson employment expert John Rooney said employers were bound by law to have rules and policies on drinking while at work. Under the Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992 employers were obliged to take all practicable steps to ensure employees' safety at work.
The extent of those restrictions depended on the nature of the particular workplace, such as the work involved or the organisation's culture.
Employees were also required under the act to ensure not only their own safety, but that of their colleagues. Arguably, this could require employees to make sure they turned up for work "substantially free" from the influence of alcohol, especially if they held safety-sensitive positions.
In workplaces where safety was an issue alcohol might be banned completely. In one case a dye caster (a dangerous job requiring careful attention) was justifiably dismissed for having a glass of beer in an unpaid lunch break, even though he drank it away from the workplace.
However in a typical office environment some drinking was probably considered okay - such as Friday night drinks.
Employers needed to consider whether a breach of their rules or policies was serious enough to warrant dismissal without notice, or whether an employee could be given a warning, Rooney said.
Drinking in the workplace, other than in an agreed social context, usually warranted instant dismissal
David Wutzler, team leader health and safety for the Employers and Manufacturers Association, said the issue came up every year.
"Where does the employer's responsibility start and stop in terms of persons at work, or a Christmas function after work?
"Whenever we get asked advice about Christmas functions we always say if people are going to drink there needs to be arrangements for people to get home."
Wutzler said the drink driving limit was usually used as a default measure of whether someone was impaired by alcohol at work.
"When companies do drug and alcohol testing they tend to use that limit, so if you're below that you're generally not seen to be impaired unless your behaviour's pretty nuts. It's the same with cannabis and a lot of other drugs."
Most experts agreed a glass or two over lunch should generally not be an issue, unless your employer had a zero tolerance to drinking while on the job.
Rebecca Williams, director of Alcohol Healthwatch, said employers needed to clearly communicate to staff what their policy was.
"There is a trend towards most people not drinking on the job. Employers might have an end of year party where alcohol may be made available and in those cases it's recommended that organisations have a really clear host responsibility structure, including arranging safe supply and safe journeys home."
