IRS Term Contract Signed

August 31, 2009

IRS Chapter Presidents:

After what has turned into a year-long effort to negotiate a new contract, I am very pleased to announce that we now have one and that it will be implemented on October 1, 2009.  As you know, the last few months have been consumed by our dealings with the Department of the Treasury over their original disapproval of nine provisions.  It took a while, but they backed off of eight of their issues and we made one tiny change in one section about when we arbitrate a case of a member who is also under indictment or at trial.  Somewhere in the middle of that discussion both NTEU and IRS completed their training of local officials and agreed to try to correct some ambiguities and flaws that the trainees pointed out, e.g., things that could have been written differently. 

But all that is now done and we even have agreement on the cover pages, which are going to be more elaborate than in the past in an effort to send the core message of any contract that is often lost in the hundreds of pages between the covers.  Our covers will explain that it is NTEU that negotiated for the benefits and rights that employees coming into IRS today enjoy, and it is NTEU that has many, many tools for getting problems resolved on their behalf.  I expect to send you a copy of the galleys the printer sent us to review.  You should see that by Friday via an e-mail or web link.  There are inevitably printer errors that we have to correct, but that galley should be almost identical to the document IRS will distribute to all employees by October 1, the day the contract is effective.  I have also attached an employee message for you to distribute to employees in your bargaining unit as appropriate.

Thank you for all of your support throughout this very long process.  The hard work put in by so many NTEU leaders at the table, providing documentation for our team to use at the table, and your feedback at training and throughout, got us to this point.  Now the harder work begins to breathe life into the words negotiated, educate members about the content of the new agreement, and to ensure that the agreement is implemented appropriately.  I look forward to working with all of you to make that happen.

          Colleen