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Washington, D.C.-- The president of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) today applauded a Supreme Court decision which he said "completely vindicates and supports" the rights of federal employees to be represented when they are compelled to take part in investigatory interviews conducted by the Office of Inspector General.

Robert M. Tobias said the Court's decision in a case in which NTEU filed an amicus brief "fully supports vital and fundamental employee rights" specifically granted to them in the federal labor?management statute:

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, represents some 155,000 employees in 21 agencies and departments. The case before the Supreme Court was of particular importance to NTEU, Tobias said, because of its separate dispute with the Internal Revenue Service, where NTEU represents some 98,000 employees, over the operating role of a newly?formed entity known as the Treasury Inspector General For Tax Administration (TIGTA).

Under the 1998 IRS Restructuring and Reform Act, all of the duties and most of the personnel of the IRS Inspection Service were transferred to TIGTA, which has taken the position that because it is not a representative of the agency, within the meaning of the law, it can compel IRS employees to take part in investigatory interviews without representation.

That view, Tobias said, "strikes at the heart of employee rights not just at the IRS, but throughout the federal government. Today's Supreme Court decision clearly reinforces the right of employees to have representation during such interviews."

The NTEU president, who was a key member of the National Commission on Restructuring the IRS whose work formed the basis for the far?reaching 1998 reform legislation, said the record is clear that Congress's primary intent in transferring the functions of Inspection to TIGTA was to ensure greater accountability of IRS managers. "There was no intent to repeal, by implication or otherwise, existing and hard?won employee rights," Tobias said, calling today's Court decision "both recognition and validation of that point."

The case at the Supreme Court involved an appeal by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and its Office of Inspector General of a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. The Supreme Court today affirmed the appeals court's ruling that NASA's Office of Inspector General was indeed a representative of the agency within the meaning of the 1978 Federal Service Labor?Management Relations Act.