Yahoo: Treasury Department terminates union contracts for IRS and Bureau of the Fiscal Service workers yahoo

yahoo The Treasury Department has terminated its collective bargaining agreement with unionized workers at the Internal Revenue Service and has also ended the union contract for the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, agency Friday. The move invokes an executive order President Donald Trump signed last March as the authority for the terminations.

Yahoo reaction and legal authority

The IRS said Friday that it “has now terminated its collective bargaining agreement” with the National Treasury Employees Union and has unilaterally ended the 2022 national agreement and a 2025 addendum to the contract. IRS Chief Human Capital Officer Alex Kweskin told employees the action “deepens our commitment of operating as one IRS, a collaborative team focused on serving American taxpayers. ”

How the terminations unfolded

Agency leaders informed bargaining-unit employees that Treasury used the March executive order as the legal basis for ending the contracts. Two people familiar with the decision said the union contract for the Bureau of the Fiscal Service was also terminated this week; those two people spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak with the media.

Union responses and filed grievances

NTEU President Doreen Greenwald said the IRS “cannot unilaterally end” its contract and noted that the federal sector labor statute requires the IRS to have a collective bargaining agreement “with the exclusive representative of its bargaining unit employees. ” Greenwald told the IRS in a letter Friday that despite the agency’s claims, “it cannot lawfully do so, and that the CBA remains in effect. ”

The union filed a national grievance last week after the IRS placed more than 1, 000 back-office employees on involuntary 120-day details to frontline filing season work — jobs that many of them have no prior experience doing. NTEU told bargaining unit members that a response from the IRS was due by April 2.

Court rulings and appeals timeline

The union sued the federal government last year over the executive order. A D. C. court issued a preliminary injunction against the government, but that injunction was stayed pending an appeal. Meanwhile, a three-judge panel of the U. S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit issued a decision in a separate case Thursday that cleared the way for implementation of the executive order.

Operational changes and arbitration

Kweskin wrote that the IRS has cancelled all negotiations in progress with NTEU and “will implement any changes to conditions of employment without bargaining. ” He said the agency is working with Treasury on a “systematic update” of personnel files to revoke the bargaining-unit status of NTEU members. He also said the IRS will cancel any arbitration hearings and pay arbitrators for work already performed.

NTEU told bargaining unit members in an email that it has told arbitrators involved in ongoing disputes that “this means nothing in terms of our cases going forward. ” “The arbitrators are agreeing with this posture and moving forward with cases — whether the agency participates or not, ” the union wrote. An IRS all-hands email reminded staff that all federal employees are legally prohibited from labor strikes, whether or not they are in a bargaining unit.

Broader policy context and workforce impact

The Office of Personnel Management this month instructed agencies to comply with the March order, directing agency heads to notify labor unions that they are terminating any applicable collective bargaining agreements. OPM guidance followed executive actions that, in related filings, were described as eliminating collective bargaining rights at more than 20 agencies and as having stripped over 1 million federal workers of collective bargaining rights through executive orders issued in March and August last year.

One analysis in the materials provided in context said the administration has shrunk the IRS workforce by roughly a quarter and that the agency had about 100, 000 employees when the president took office a year ago. OPM also released a rule that loosens job protections for policy-related positions, a change that the materials say could make it easier for political appointees to remove and replace career staff. The contextual reporting warned that with reduced job protections, IRS career employees who warn against illegal actions could be fired, escalating political power over tax administration.

Kweskin advised managers not to invite union representatives to formal discussions or to respond to union requests for information, and said that if managers receive a negotiated grievance they should send it to Labor Employee Relations and Negotiations. The National Treasury Employees Union represents roughly 150, 000 employees in 37 departments and agencies and, in the IRS context, the union represents roughly two-thirds of the agency.

President Donald Trump was pictured gesturing from the stairs of Air Force One upon his arrival at Joint Base Andrews, Md., on Friday, Feb. 27, 2025.

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Closing: The Treasury’s termination of collective bargaining agreements has set in motion grievances, legal challenges and administrative changes the agencies say they will implement immediately while litigation and appeals proceed.