The National Treasury Employees Union has said an arbitrator decided in its favor over whether IRS management failed to "link" all the ways employee suggestions are solicited and adopted with a negotiated employee-suggestions program through which employees can get cash awards.
The union said the decision means "potentially hundreds" of IRS employees could become eligible to receive awards under the program, ranging up to 25 percent of first-year estimated savings from the adoption of an idea.
As a result of the arbitration, employees that have made suggestions through a non-ESP program as far back as May 26, 2006, would be allowed to re-submit their ideas through the negotiated suggestions program so they can be considered for awards, retroactive or otherwise, the union said.
NTEU’s president, Colleen Kelley, claimed that IRS management "repeatedly promulgated a variety of independent programs and campaigns soliciting employee ideas and suggestions intended to achieve improvements and efficiencies in a wide range of agency operations without reminding employees that only ideas submitted through the ESP are eligible for suggestion awards."