For those of you who may have missed reading the NTEU National Bulletin one of our very own Robin Lowder made the news! OT Win For IRS Worker Our very own Bill Dreier and Ed Currie worked very hard to put this case together to make sure this member was taken care of. When IRS management refused to do the right thing the Arbitrator had to. It paid to be a NTEU member , just ask Robin. Special thanks to Chapter 73 Attorney William Igoe for arguing this case for our member resulting in her being compensated. Two Internal Revenue Service (IRS) co-workers doing similar work. Both with almost identical performance evalu- ations, and very nearly the same scores, at that. Yet, only one of them was allowed to work overtime; the other was not. The agency’s refusal to permit Robin Lowder, a tax examiner and member of NTEU Chapter 73 (IRS Cincinnati), to work overtime violated a provision in the contract on overtime, NTEU told an arbitrator. That provision calls for overtime to be distributed as equitably as possible among equally qualified employees, based on the skills needed to perform the over- time work as identified by the employer. That negotiated provision, supple- mented by the practice that when mak- ing employee selections for such assign- ments, the IRS must have a basis in fact for its decision—especially if it is going to deny someone overtime—led to an NTEU arbitration victory. Lowder, an IRS seasonal employee for the past five years, pursued the griev- ance all the way through arbitration even though it was personally difficult, and she was pleased to have NTEU at her side.NTEU at her side. Sometimes, you have to keep after management to do the right thing,” said Lowder. Work is ongoing to implement the arbitrator’s decision; a settlement could result in substantial back pay for Lowder, In its presentation on Lowder’s behalf, NTEU pointed not only to the contract language, but to inconsistencies in her mid-year appraisal. On one hand, the union noted, the appraisal indicated she had performed inadequately in the deci- sion-making aspect of her position. How- ever, just a single page later, the narrative carried this comment about her ability on this aspect of her work: “You generally make good decisions on your cases, based on basic knowledge of tax law and exam procedures.” In his decision, the arbitrator outlined an extensive comparison he made of the scores received by Lowder and her col- league who was awarded overtime assign- ment. He found them to be very close in overall performance. “This record does not demonstrate a significant difference between the two employees,” he wrote in his decision, finding disparate treatment and ordering Lowder to be paid for all overtime hours missed.
Posted on: Wed, 05 Mar 2014 11:45:59 +0000
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