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Washington, D.C.—The National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) has filed a national grievance in response to a proposed reduction-in-force (RIF) of 14 Internal Revenue Service nurses, charging the agency with violating a number of laws and the NTEU-IRS contract in displacing the federal nurses.

NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley called on the IRS to halt implementation of the proposed RIF, to return the employees to their status quo and to refrain from any RIF-related activities in this important function. The IRS plans to have the nurses off the employment rolls by Oct. 1, 2005.

“These nurses have served the IRS and its employees loyally for years,” President Kelley said, “and they were assured that their positions would not be impacted when the IRS began contracting with Federal Occupational Health (FOH) medical providers.” FOH is a unit of the U.S. Public Health Service; it both operates its own health centers and contracts to a wide range of private health-care providers.

Kelley said the IRS has failed to prove that the proposed RIF is necessary, failed to hold any type of competition before contracting out the medical services activity, and is refusing to provide NTEU with the information necessary to negotiate over the proposed action. “The IRS is not only going back on its word to these employees,” the union leader said, “it is violating the law in the manner in which this action is being conducted.”

She added: “It is sad that these veteran IRS employees—health care workers who have provided many years of caring and compassionate service to their IRS colleagues—are being treated with such indifference. These men and women deserve better.”

The affected nurses work at 10 IRS campus facilities, providing health services to large numbers of agency employees. Most have been with the IRS for more than a decade; none is less than 40 years of age; and at least five of the 14 are eligible for retirement within two years. When the IRS began contracting with FOH, the IRS nurses trained FOH staff and have worked side-by-side with them. The IRS is required to have nurses on-site in the campuses during any shift in which there are more than 500 employees.

However, last summer the nurses learned that their jobs were to be eliminated because, the agency said, their presence was not “consistent with the organizational design and function” of the IRS human capital office. This move comes despite previous written assurances by the IRS director of personnel services that their positions were secure.

Among other unrealistic steps, such as transferring to a non-nursing position within IRS, the agency has suggested the nurses join FOH subcontractors. The nurses believe that would put them in untenable positions, working for high-turnover contractors who provide a lower-quality care at higher costs, even as their pay would fail to be commensurate with their years of nursing experience. In addition, the IRS nurses would lose their seniority as it applies to shifts and time off.

Some of the nurses have suggested that the agency’s decision is the result of action by an IRS nurse who complained that FOH was both overcharging the agency and charging for services not being provided. The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) is investigating the whistleblower’s complaints.

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing some 150,000 employees in 30 agencies and departments, including some 98,000 in the IRS.