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Washington, D.C.—The National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) has, for the second time, asked an arbitrator to prevent the Internal Revenue Service from using illegal educational requirements to fill key Revenue Agent (RAs) positions. The planned hiring would bring RAs on board in early June.

Last month, an arbitrator declined to issue such a stay because it was only days until the selected applicants were to report for duty. His decision, however, left the door open for NTEU to seek a stay with more advance notice for “any future hiring” to fill RA positions.

NTEU successfully challenged the IRS in arbitration over its increase in the number of college-level accounting credits required for a position as an RA from the government-wide standard of 24 hours to 30 hours and impose five required areas of coursework as a “selective placement factor” for the position. In 2004 an arbitrator ruled that these educational requirements violate both federal law and the NTEU-IRS contract. He ordered the parties to either negotiate an appropriate remedy or return to arbitration after 90 days.

The practical impact of these illegal requirements is to deny promotional opportunities to well-qualified IRS employees who meet the requirements that previously were in effect. NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley sharply criticized the agency’s refusal to voluntarily stop the hiring process in the face of the arbitrator’s decision that they are both illegal and violate the labor agreement.

The arbitrator ruled that minimum education requirements can be imposed only if an agency shows that the duties of the position can only be performed by an individual who meets those requirements. The reality at the IRS is that thousands of RAs are successfully performing the duties of their positions without meeting those requirements, Kelley said.

The NTEU leader also has taken sharp issue with IRS statements that have characterized this case as an impediment to the agency’s ability to close the “tax gap”—the difference between taxes owed and collected—and crack down on abusive tax shelters.

On the contrary, Kelley said, “these problems are much more likely the result of declining resources and a 36 percent decrease in the number of enforcement personnel since 1996."

Apart from NTEU’s request for a stay on the most recent IRS RA hiring decisions, the parties have agreed on a schedule for submitting briefs to the arbitrator on the appropriate remedy for IRS employees adversely impacted by either the 30-hour rule or the five-course requirements. That issue could be decided in May.

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing some 150,000 employees in 30 agencies and departments.