Arbitrator faults IRS in labor negotiations

The National Treasury Employees Union announced on Monday that an independent arbitrator has ruled against the Internal Revenue Service for the third time this year, citing the IRS for bad-faith bargaining for its attempts to negotiate over alternative work schedules outside of the framework of the agreement that expired in June 2006.

"We have arbitrated three cases, and in all three cases, arbitrators ruled that the IRS has negotiated with us in bad faith," NTEU President Colleen Kelley said. "We had a collective bargaining agreement that talked about partnership and how we would work together. For the third time this year, an arbitrator has ruled that the IRS has acted illegally in approaching negotiations with NTEU." Spokeswoman Michelle Lamishaw said the IRS had no comment on either the arbitrator's decision or the next steps in its negotiations with NTEU.

The agency also declined to comment on a September decision that cited the IRS for unilaterally withdrawing from provisions of the old contract.

At that time, arbitrator Roger Abrams wrote that the IRS' actions "undermined the structure of the parties' relationship."

Kelley, an outspoken critic of the Federal Service Impasses Panel, the body that decides disputes between federal agencies and the unions that represent their employees, said NTEU had asked the Federal Labor Relations Authority to issue a stay against FSIP to prevent it from intervening in the union's dispute with the IRS. "We have not had any kind of a response [from FLRA], but we have seen no action from FSIP either," she said.

Kelley said NTEU employees continued to work under their old contract.

"We are going to continue to try to ask the IRS to do the right thing, and then we will be at the bargaining table," she said.