A maintenance electrician and member of his employer’s safety committee was terminated after 37 years of employment when he tested positive for marijuana. The company’s union argued that the employee’s personal use of CBD oil and marijuana did not cause impairment at work, but the individual was not a licensed medical marijuana user under Missouri law. The employee was required to submit to a drug test as part of a return-to-duty physical following a 47-day medical leave of absence. He admitted to using marijuana while on leave, as well as CBD oil. The employee filed two union grievances regarding the termination, but the arbitrator in Virbac Corporation and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 1, determined that the employer met its burden of showing just cause, reasoning that the legalization of marijuana “whether medicinal or recreational,” does not require employers to embrace the use of “legal” marijuana products, such as CBD oil.
