Implementation of a new mid-term labor
agreement early this month brings IRS employees important new benefits secured
for them in negotiations by NTEU, including a more robust performance awards
program that recognizes outstanding service by employees to the IRS and
The
contract also gives employees more flexibility with their work schedules by
increasing the number of credit hours they can work in one day from two to
three, allowing alternative work schedule hours to be non-contiguous and
establishing a flexiplace agreement in the Taxpayer
Advocate Service. The agreement further
provides for an improved reduction-in-force process for workers and establishes
an expedited EEO complaint process.
The agreement also expands employee
rights in promotions and competitive actions, linking performance appraisals to
the promotion process and providing that, with narrow exceptions, the area of
consideration for vacant bargaining unit positions will be IRS-wide. NTEU also
won a single, shortened ‘best qualified’ list in event of a vacancy, or
multiple positions, in one or more posts of duty.
Employee performance at the IRS also will be enhanced because of a
tougher performance management article that continues to make managers
responsible for providing assistance to help employees improve their
performance. The IRS sought to eliminate that requirement.
NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley said she is “very pleased” with
the gains the union made on behalf of IRS employees and with NTEU’s success in
rejecting several initiatives presented by the IRS that would have reversed
previously-won worker benefits and protections. With 10 of the most important
contract articles reopened by the parties, “this new mid-term agreement
incorporates key provisions NTEU strongly supported,” Kelley said.
Implementation began on
Most
issues were agreed to by the parties earlier this year, but implementation was
held up when the IRS refused, for the first time since the initial NTEU-IRS
national agreement in 1980, to accept the recommendations of a neutral
third-party fact-finder on disputed issues. NTEU accepted the fact-finder’s
recommendation.
With
the matter before both the Federal Service Impasses Panel (FSIP) and Federal
Labor Relations Board (FLRA), NTEU prodded the IRS to get back to the
bargaining table to deal with all outstanding issues. That step, finally agreed
to by the agency, paved the way for implementation.
The contract is available to any NTEU member
on the NTEU web site at www.nteu.org.
Members must log-in and then go to the Negotiated Agreements section under
Union Office to see the final version or to download a copy. If all goes well with the printer, paper
copies of the contract should be available in January.
Survey Update
IRS Management has decided not to
move forward with traditional survey meetings, but has instructed managers to
meet with their groups about “balanced measures.” They gave no details about how these meetings
would be conducted, the goal of the meetings, or other ground rules; it was
clear that they want to move forward with the survey process. But, they also want to avoid a blatant challenge
to the resistance NTEU has mounted to date.
NTEU
has filed a national grievance challenging the survey and demanded to negotiate
over the changes.
NTEU has taken a
stand to insist that management recognize that the annual survey process has to
be vastly improved. Elevated issues,
manager accountability, database access, and many other items need to be
revised to resolve this dispute.
2006 Pay Raise for Federal Employees
The NTEU-supported 3.1 percent pay raise (average) for Federal
Employees was recently signed into law for 2006.
Each
year, NTEU works very hard to ensure that federal employees receive a fair and
competitive pay raise and to keep parity with military employees. For federal
workers, 2006 is no exception because NTEU was able to get a 3.1 percent
increase signed into law despite the president’s initial budget proposal that
called for only a 2.3 percent increase for 2006.
The
facts below show the real difference NTEU makes.
From 2001 through 2006, the
administration’s proposals would pay you $270,469 at a $50,000 annual salary.
NTEU’s work led to pay over that same period of $282,559. That’s $12,090 in your pocket!
It’s your union—NTEU—doing it for you.
Quick Notes
- 2005
HRIF Fund Payouts: These payouts were distributed as follows: by far the
most went to pay for employees’ accounting classes, then for various classes
for potential RIF-impacted employees, then for information tech classes for
MITS employees, and some for multilingual classes.
- Mileage
Rate Decrease: IRS has set the 2006 mileage reimbursement rate allowed as a
business expense tax deduction at 44.5 cents a mile. GSA has established the mileage reimbursement
rate for the federal workforce also at 44.5 cents a mile. While that is up from the 40.5 cents per mile
rate for much of 2005, it is a drop of four cents from the 48.5 cents per mile
allowed for the balance of this year in the face of soaring gas prices in the
aftermath of Hurricane Katrina three months ago.
- A
Noteworthy Achievement: Steven J. Okapal, son of
Settlement Officer (and former Revenue Officer) Andy Okapal
(& wife Mary) recently took the Graduate Record Exam (GRE) as a part
of his application process to various Graduate Schools. Steven has two
undergraduate degrees from
Steven scored a perfect 800 out of 800
on the math portion of the exam! The computerized questions increase
in difficulty as the individual takes the exam to determine the level
of competency. Neither Steven nor anyone else in the physics department at
Employee
Satisfaction — or not!
Comments from
Colleen Kelley
Most of you have probably heard of the issue of management trying to purge any
mention of “employee satisfaction”. When the first IRS e-mail surfaced on this
right before the holidays, I sent it to the IRS expressing surprise and
amusement that they have nothing better to do than this. This is as ridiculous
a decision as I have ever seen IRS leaders make, but it is typical of the current
LR decision-making process at the IRS.
For more than two years now, we
have tried to reach settlements with management on very important policy issues
like the “good potential” and awards issues only to see them reject these very
reasonable settlements and get hit with harsher penalties as NTEU moves the
dispute to third parties. One would think they would be learning from these
losses, but they are not. In fact, it seems as if someone is telling them that
because the current administration is anti-union and anti-employee, management
will win every fight it starts. Of course, NTEU’s success on many issues proves
otherwise.
Our planned response is
multifaceted. We are going to widely publicize among employees our opposition
to these absurd “balanced measure meetings” where managers discuss “employee
engagement.” We are going to ask employees to treat these meetings with the
level of respect that they deserve, which is not much.
We are going to arbitration
shortly pursuing very substantial remedies to be imposed on management, and we
are studying whether to file new charges to further increase the penalties on
them.
I have also just decided to take
this ridiculous IRS action public, and you will see some issuances shortly.
Whoever in management is advocating this continued opposition to NTEU and to
employees sooner or later is going to be asked to explain why the IRS has
suffered so many substantial losses and why the IRS is wasting so much time,
energy, and money working against NTEU and employees, rather than with us.
Hopefully, when that conversation does occur, someone in the room will remind
management that this is what happens when management forces the union to act
as an adversary and the reason why previous IRS administrations have
frequently restarted various experiments at labor-management cooperation.
In the middle of last year, on
three days notice, you were able to convince 30,000 employees not to take the
survey. That was an amazing accomplishment and a tribute to how so many
employees are feeling about the management of the IRS these days. Now that
management has left us no choice but to continue to fight them on this, despite
very reasonable settlement offers we have made, I am willing to bet that we
will exceed even our past level of success among employees as the IRS continues
its antics.
(Comments
edited by Don Pfouts)