Yahoo: Treasury and IRS Terminate Union Contracts, Union Leaders Push Back
yahoo The Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service have terminated collective bargaining agreements with the National Treasury Employees Union, using a March executive order as authority, a step union leaders say cannot lawfully be taken and that will affect thousands of federal employees.
What the agencies said
The IRS said Friday that it "has now terminated its collective bargaining agreement" with the National Treasury Employees Union and that it notified the union it had terminated the 2022 National Agreement and the 2025 addendum, Alex Kweskin, IRS chief human capital officer, wrote in an email to staff on Friday.
Treasury action extended to the Bureau of the Fiscal Service
Two people familiar with the decision, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak with the media, said the union contract for the Bureau of the Fiscal Service was also terminated this week; the fiscal service bureau processes payments for the government.
Union leaders and legal fights
NTEU President Doreen Greenwald said the IRS "cannot unilaterally end" its contract and that the federal sector labor statute requires the IRS to have a collective bargaining agreement "with the exclusive representative of its bargaining unit employees. " The union had sued the federal government last year over President Donald Trump’s executive order, and a D. C. court issued a preliminary injunction that was stayed pending an appeal; 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.
How the IRS plans to implement changes
Kweskin told employees the move "deepens our commitment of operating as One IRS, a collaborative team focused on serving American taxpayers. " He wrote that the IRS has cancelled all negotiations in progress with NTEU and "will implement any changes to conditions of employment without bargaining" and that the agency is working with Treasury on a "systematic update" of personnel files to revoke the bargaining-unit status of NTEU members.
Workforce, grievances and arbitration
NTEU filed a national grievance last week after the IRS put more than 1, 000 back-office employees on involuntary 120-day details to do frontline filing season work — jobs that many of them have no prior experience doing — and told bargaining unit members a response from the IRS was due by April 2. Kweskin also said the IRS will cancel any arbitration hearings and pay arbitrators for work already performed; the union told bargaining unit members that it has told arbitrators that "this means nothing in terms of our cases going forward" and that "the arbitrators are agreeing with this posture and moving forward with cases — whether the agency participates or not. "
Orders, guidance and broader changes
Office of Personnel Management director Scott Kupor issued a memo this month to agency heads calling on them to comply with the March order and notify labor unions "that they are terminating any applicable CBAs (collective bargaining agreements), whether represented by the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) or another labor union. " The memo follows executive actions that the context describes as eliminating collective bargaining rights at more than 20 agencies and, in related guidance, asking agencies to comply with two executive orders released in March and August last year that the context says stripped over 1 million federal workers of collective bargaining rights.
Impact on employees and agency rules
The National Treasury Employees Union represents roughly 150, 000 employees in 37 departments and agencies and represents roughly two-thirds of the IRS, the agency has said; context material also states the Trump 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. Kweskin wrote that managers shouldn’t invite union representatives to formal discussions or respond to union requests for information and that negotiated grievances should be sent to Labor Employee Relations and Negotiations. The 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.
OPM earlier this month released a rule to loosen job protections for policy-related positions, the context states, a change described there as making it easier for political appointees to remove and replace such employees; the context adds that with reduced job protections, IRS career employees who warn against illegal actions could be fired, a change the context ties to increased political control over tax administration.
President Donald Trump gestures from the stairs of Air Force One upon his arrival at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Friday, Feb. 27, 2025.
This story was last updated at 5: 30 p. m. The Federal Service unclear in the provided context.
The next confirmed deadline in the material is that the IRS had told bargaining unit members a response was due by April 2; arbitrators have been told they are moving forward with cases whether the agency participates or not.
