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Washington, D.C.—The National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) has filed a national grievance challenging the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) on the agency’s refusal to back away from its decision to close its telephone call sites in Chicago and Houston— despite the clear intent of Congress that it not do so.

The shutdowns came late last week notwithstanding NTEU’s success in securing language in two federal laws prohibiting the IRS from reducing its customer service until the impact of agency decisions to cut back such services can be studied. In all, some 95 employees were impacted in the two cities.

NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley was sharply critical of the IRS decision. “Just as NTEU has done, Congress has made clear its opposition to the short-sighted and counterproductive cuts in customer service the IRS continues to make,” she said. Such a move, Kelley added, “results in the loss of highly-skilled, experienced and dedicated employees—and that is a critical blow that no informed employer, including a major federal agency, should tolerate, much less initiate.”

The Chicago and Houston call sites handled Wage and Investment (W&I) Division calls, dealing with wage earners—the largest single group of taxpayers. Their closing is another step in an IRS effort to deny to taxpayers the personalized help they need, particularly during the tax-filing season, forcing them to use the agency’s web site for tax help, Kelley said.

Over the past eight months, NTEU has been successful in turning back a number of these ill-conceived steps by the IRS. This includes a nationwide campaign that forced the agency to abandon plans to close 68 of the walk-in Taxpayer Assistance Centers across the country.

More recently, the union led an effort that led the IRS to drop plans to reduce by 20 percent the amount of time each day that telephone tax help is available to taxpayers.

On the legislative front, NTEU—working with its chapters around the country—secured language in the fiscal 2006 Transportation-Treasury Appropriations bill directing the IRS to make improvements of its 1-800 help line service a priority, including allocating the necessary resources to increase phone lines and staff for that service.

However, the IRS effectively ignored that language and said it would go ahead with the telephone help line cutbacks. At NTEU’s urging, that drew the additional congressional response of a provision in the fiscal 2006 Defense Appropriations bill specifically prohibiting the IRS from cutting telephone assistance center help below the levels of October 2005.

The union’s national grievance comes on the heels of the agency’s demonstrated determination to continue to ignore the will of Congress with the closure of the Chicago and Houston call sites.

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing some 150,000 employees in 30 agencies and departments, including 90,000 in the IRS.