The US is poised to require foreign aircraft-repair shops to test workers for drugs and alcohol

The FAA has proposed mandatory drug and alcohol testing for employees of aircraft-repair shops in other countries, a move that labor unions and Congress have urged for many years. The FAA said Wednesday that its proposal would affect nearly 1,000 repair shops in 65 countries. However, shops in countries where mandatory testing is against the law can apply for an exemption, according to a notice to be published in the Federal Register on Thursday. Unions representing US aircraft mechanics have long pushed for more scrutiny of foreign shops, calling it an issue of safety and protecting U.S. jobs. In 2012, Congress directed the FAA to write testing regulations covering foreign shops. But the FAA moved slowly, saying that other countries, and the operators of their repair stations, would object to the US imposing conditions on their workers. The FAA has previously said that it lacks enough data to know whether testing foreign workers would have any additional safety benefit. On Wednesday, however, the agency said testing would be “an important step in our overall safety mission” because so few countries require it. Unions representing aircraft mechanics in the US praised the FAA’s turnabout. “This is a great first step toward addressing the scourge of offshoring the vital maintenance of US-flagged passenger jets,” John Samuelsen, president of the Transport Workers Union. “We’ve been fighting this for years.”<br/>