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Washington, D.C.—The National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) has used its right under federal labor law to initiate negotiations to reach agreement with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) on an employee awards program related to suggestions that save taxpayers money.

NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley said the union had initiated bargaining midterm under authority granted to the union by federal labor law and upheld by the Supreme Court two years ago. The resulting agreement will raise the employee’s share of the savings generated by their suggestions to 25 percent of first year savings. That is the highest level in government, and well beyond the10 percent level during the first year of the program’s implementation.

“This is a situation in which everyone wins,” Kelley said. “Agencies benefit from the additional incentive for employee involvement, workers have the possibility of receiving more money, and taxpayers clearly benefit from the cost savings that are realized.”

In March 1999, the Supreme Court ruled 5-to-4 that federal employees have the same collective bargaining rights as managers to raise issues during the term of an existing labor agreement. The Court sent the case back to the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) for directions on how and when the rights can be exercised. A year later, the FLRA, an independent body with responsibility for federal sector labor-relations,

restated its long-standing support for bargaining over union-initiated midterm proposals, provided the matter was not covered by an existing labor agreement.

Prior to the Supreme Court decision resolving a split among federal appeals courts, only agency managers in some parts of the country had the right to demand bargaining, during the life of an existing agreement, over new and unforeseen issues.

In those areas, employees, acting through their collective bargaining representatives, had to wait until the end of the contract period to raise issues that came up during the period covered by the contract.

Kelley said the agreement with the IRS is in line with the approach the parties have taken since the agency undertook the most massive reorganization in government history more than two years ago. Since that time, she said, IRS employees have played an integral and continuing role in designing and implementing IRS modernization.

“Any step we take that increases both the likelihood and the opportunity for employee involvement is a good step,” Kelley said. “Employees want and need to be heard in meaningful ways about their work, and when they are, good things happen.”

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing some 150,000 employees in 25 agencies and departments, including 98,000 in the IRS.