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Eight rail labor unions and BNSF Railway Co. recently filed a motion in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit challenging a U.S. Department of Transportation rule that would require transportation workers to provide urine samples under "direct observation" for mandatory return-to-duty or follow-up drug tests.

Scheduled to take effect Aug. 25, the rule requires employees to disrobe and be observed while producing a urine sample for federally mandated drug tests. The unions and BNSF are asking the court to determine whether the rule violates the Constitution's Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and the Omnibus Transportation Employee Testing Act of 1991, which requires testing procedures that offer individual privacy.

The unions include the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET), Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes Division, American Train Dispatchers Association, Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, Transportation Communications International Union, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, National Conference of Firemen and Oilers, and United Transportation Union (UTU). The unions and BNSF believe the new regulation is an intrusion on workers.

"Statistics do not warrant such invasive procedures based on vague wording and apparent wide carrier latitude for ordering direct observation tests," said UTU International President Mike Futhey in a prepared statement.

Adds BLET National President Ed Rodzwicz: "Forcing a railroad worker to submit to an embarrassing and humiliating strip search and observed collection without reasonable suspicion is an outrage."