MEMORANDUM OF AGREEMENT

BETWEEN

THE INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE

AND

THE NATIONAL TREASURY EMPLOYEES UNION

This agreement is entered into pursuant to the provisions of the Federal Service Labor Relations, Statute, 5 U.S.C. 7101 et seq., between the Internal Revenue Service (Employer) and the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), collectively referred to as the “Parties”, over issues pertaining to the delivery of programs under the auspices of the Assistant Commissioner (Customer Service), to the public during fiscal year 2000 and beyond.

Section 1. CUSTOMER SERVICE OPERATIONS CENTER

The Employer has determined to undertake the following actions:

A. Establish the Customer Service Operations Center (CSOC) in Atlanta which will utilize the Customer Service Call Router (CSCR) and TeleCenter System (TCS) Scheduling and Forecasting technologies to accomplish the following key activities:

B. Additionally, to effectively implement the CSOC and supporting technology (CSCR and TCS), the Employer has determined it will:

1) Implement the newly-configured Aspect application groupings and standardized agent groups in each Call Center;
2) Establish Fresno Service Center as the primary contingency location in the event of an outage or closing at CSOC. The National Customer Service office (New Carrollton) will serve as a –secondary contingency location. The Employer will brief local NTEU Chapters in the Service Center and New Carrollton Headquarters Office relevant to the plans for implementing these conditions as contingency sites for CSOC.

C. In order to ensure that NTEU is kept apprised of the initial plans and on-going activities relative to CSOC, the Employer will:

1) Share with NTEU Nation, immediately or when completed, copies of all action plans developed for the national rollout of CSOC, CSCR, and TCS. Share with each impacted chapter, immediately or when completed. Call Center site specific action plans developed from the national rollout of CSOC, CSCR and TCS. Share all staffing plans with NTEU National and Call Center site specific action plans with each impacted chapter, when they are received in the Call Center site, for each planning period (October-December, January-June and July-September). These plans will include the required staffing per hour or half-hour for each day for each Call Center, site, and the assumptions used to develop the plans (e.g., leave, read and meeting time, etc). the CS Directors will provide and electronic certification in National NTEU that the site’s action and staffing plans have been shared with Local NTEU.
2) Develop CSOC Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) which provides the procedures for distribution (routing) of telephone work. Additionally, the Employee will:

a) Share a copy of the CSOC’s SOPs with NTEU National and each Call Center. SOPs will incorporate relative provisions of this Agreement as it relates to CSOC’s responsibility.
b) To the extent that these SOPs impact conditions of employment beyond this Customer Service Agreement. NTEU National will be provided an opportunity to negotiate, however, only to the extent that the SOP impacts working conditions beyond those contained in this Agreement and NORD/NC V.

3) Brief NTEU nationally and locally within thirty (30) days after each planning period (i.e., October-December, January-June, July-September) regarding the results achieved for the prior planning period by COSC and to receive suggestions or feedback from NTEU regarding the impact of CSOC operations in bargaining unit employees. Examples of data to be shared will include corporate-level Customer Service Business Measure results, distribution of calls to each Call Center, service levels (as measured in customer queue time) achieved by each Call Center, and percent of secondary abandoned calls experienced at each Call Center.
4) Notify a nationally appointed NTEU representative (or the designated alternate) of the weekly CSOC teleconference call with the call sites so the representative can participate during the general portion of the teleconference.
5) Establish a liaison in the CSOC who can be contacted directly by NTEU national officials to solve problems and vice versa.

Section 2. READ TIME/MEETING TIME

A. The parties agree that there is value in providing sufficient read time and meeting time for all Customer Service employees including Walk-In employees to keep current with new technical and procedural information necessary for quality customer service and employee satisfaction. As a result, the Employer has determined that read time and meeting time will be scheduled each week throughout the year, including the filing season. Generally, neither read time nor meeting time will be scheduled during peak hours or on the following peak days:

1) Mondays;
2) Tuesdays following a Monday holiday;
3) From April 1 to April 15, unless new materials are issued employees during this time.
4) August 15

B. Meeting time is defined as time spent in recurring meetings that primarily focus on clarifying technical or procedural items; however, some brief or incidental administrative items may also be addressed during this meeting time after all technical and procedural issues have been addressed. Formal training, significant administrative items, On-the-Job Instruction (OJT), Survey Feedback Action (SFA) meetings and Total Quality Organizations (TQO) meetings are not regarded as meeting time for the purposes of this definition. The Employer has determined that it will schedule, on a weekly basis, thirty (30) minutes allotted as the parties may agree locally.

C. Read time is defined as time spent on reading and filing activities, e.g., TEBB issuances, technical or procedural information, all-employee memoranda, IDRS message files, etc., to ensure the products and services provided to customers are accurate. The Employer has determined that it will schedule sixty (60) minutes for read time on a weekly basis. Moreover, absent local agreements to the contrary, employees will be given read time in a minimum of thirty (30) minute blocks. The Employer can decide to make the blocks larger. Additional read time will be granted by the employee’s manager at a time that fits with workload considerations. Possible reasons for granting additional read time may include:

1) When the employee has been absent from the office for a period of time while on leave, detail and/or training. The amount of read time given will reflect:

a) The aggregate amount of time missed; however, if the time missed was due to a seasonal furlough and the intervening materials were covered in a refresher training program the-employee attended, the aggregate time may be adjusted downward to allow for the training, and
b) An employee’s need to become current so as to be able to accurately respond to customers.

2) When the employee is assigned to multiple applications and/or multiple agent groups, such as Toll-Free and ACS or Toll-Free and paper inventory.
3) When the employee has used the weekly allocation, but new technical/procedural information has been issued that same week after the employee has already the allotted time;
4) When the employee needs reasonable accommodation under Section 501 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.
5) When the employee is relatively inexperienced; or
6) When the information the employee needs to know is unusually voluminous or complex.

D. The Employer has determined that if an employee provides an incorrect answer to a question concerning a subject covered by newly received technical or procedural information that the employee has not been granted time to read, feedback will not be used for evaluative purposes, e.g., to develop a formal evaluation, as a performance indicator, or as an evaluative recordation.

E. The Employer has determined that it will establish separate uniform Organization Function Program (CFP) codes for recording and tracking the use of read time and meeting on Forms 3081. Employees will report the actual time used for reading and meetings, whether they use more or less than the allotted time.

Section 3. SIGN ON/SIGN OFF (IDLE WITH REASON CODES)

In order to implement the Sign on/Sign off and idle with Reason Codes for Call Centers, the Employer has determined that:

A. Effective December 1, 1998, and contingent on Aspect Release 6.1.2 or higher being installed in all Call Centers, all employees assigned to telephone work (product lines 1040, 8815, 4262, Automated, Collection System (ACS), Problem Resolution Program (PRP) and Criminal Investigation) will sign on to the Aspect teleset at the beginning of their scheduled tour-of-duty (TOD). The employer recognized the need for employees to sign-off a reasonable period of time (e.g., ten (10) minutes or more if that has been the local practice) before the actual end of the shift to prepare the workstation for the next user, complete reports, and conduct other end-of-the day activities. “Signed on” and “signed off” represent an employee’s availability status to perform assigned work. All Customer Service employees will use the “sign on” status as the method to reflect their status for work availability. The only exceptions to this requirement are the following:

1) Employees in all day training sessions will not sign on at all.
2) Employees who attend training, meetings or other situations which result in an absence from their work station at the beginning of their TOD will not sign on until they are at their work station.
3) Employees who report to their workstation at the beginning of their TOD, but thereafter attend training, meetings or other situations which result in an absence from their work station until the end of their TOD, will sign off when they leave their work station.

B. If an employee’s assigned work is unavailable for use, the employer is responsible for finding workstation for that employee.

C. When an employee who is “signed on” needs to leave the workstation (or who is not assigned incoming calls), the employee will report the appropriate change of work status using one of the six (6) “Idle with Reason Codes.” These codes will identify the type of idle time that the employee is utilizing. The Reason Codes are:

1) (Temporarily off the Telephone) This code indicates that the employee will be available for telephone work in a period of time not specified by other reason codes. Examples include: lunch, meetings with managers, counseling, EEO meetings, NTEU official duties, Form 3981 preparation.
2) (Inventory, First Available) This code indicates that the employee is available for telephone work, if necessary. This means employees whose work assignment is paper/ACS inventory, including related outgoing telephone calls.
3) (Inventory, Second Available) This code indicates that the employee will be made available for telephone work only when employees in the Inventory, First Available category have been utilized and call demand remains high.
4) (Training, Partly Available) This code indicates that the employee will not be available for telephone work during a specified portion of the TOD because of training-related activities. Examples include partial-day off-site, on-the-job training (OJT), or instructor preparations.
5) (Read time) This code indicates that the employee will not be available for telephone work during a specified portion of the TOD because of read time.
6) (Break time) This code indicates that the employee will not be available for telephone work during a specified portion of the TOD because of a scheduled rest break other than lunch or to relieve a stressful situation.

D. Reason Codes 2 and 3 determine the priority management has assigned to employees for taking incoming calls when their primary duty is not incoming calls. The Reason Codes will be assigned simply to indicate the order in which employees doing the same work will transition to telephones. This is not meant to imply that all employees in one functional area must transition to the telephones before all employees in another functional area. Either party may initiate negotiations to develop a system for smoothing the transition from an available status to the telephones, e.g., establishing rotating subgroups within 2 and 3 above so that not everyone must go over at the same time. However, no codes other than those above may be used without the agreement of the national parties.

E. “Reason Codes” are to be used solely for real time management of call Volume. It is not intended for use in evaluating individual performance, e.g., to prepare a form appraisal, as a performance indicator, or as an evaluative recordation, nor to make any comparisons, cross-references or reconciliation with Form 3081.

Section 4. STANDARDIZED AGENT GROUPS

The Employer has determined:

A. To establish nationally standardized agent groups and new Aspect application groupings which are aligned with the World Class Customer Service Training Curriculum. These will be shared with NTEU National and local chapters. These will be shared with NTEU National before they are implemented or changed. The groups and applications that are to be implemented with this agreement are attached.

B. To establish Spanish-language standardized agent groups which generally mirror the English language standardized agent group based on forecasted workload.

C. That management at each Customer Service Call Center will identify locally the number of employees needed for each standardized agent group based on forecasted workload.

D. To assign all employees locally to the standardized agent groups, based on successful completion of formal classroom work, OJT and/or learning curve. When employees are assigned to new or different agent groups, the Employer will provide written notice to employees in advance of the change. The assignment of employees to standardized agent groups will be accomplished in a fair and objective manner.

1) It is expected that, over the course of the year, the employer will provide employees with a reasonable amount of time working each agent group for which they are trained so as to maintain their technical readiness.
2) Additionally, it is expected that, from time to time, the employer will assign a portion of their employees to work for a week or more at least one of the agent groups for which they are trained. In that case, the employer will give due consideration to volunteers, and seniority if there are more volunteers than opportunities.
3) Employees not in agreement with the agent group assignment will have the opportunity to meet with their respective managers to discuss their ability to handle the assigned applications.

E. Moreover, when the Employer assigns an employee to actually work a specific agent group/application (a.k.a. a gate or A baby gate), it will not change that mix of work without advance notice to the employee. If the employee identifies a change, he or she may go into idle to discuss the change with the manager and union representative, if necessary.

F. To provide a localized gate map to all employees to facilitate proper routing (transfer) of telephone calls. At a minimum, the gate map will contain a list of the standardized agent groups, the Aspect applications aligned to each standardized agent group and the extension numbers of each agent group.

G. To maximize the routing of calls to employees to match their levels of training, and to improve customer service, Employees who receive a question outside their range of assigned applications or training will either write up or transfer the call. Training means the employee has been to the formal training and any refresher training provided to similarly-situated employees.

Section 5. TOGGLING

The Employer agrees that, before it requires an employee to display two (2) or more functions simultaneously on a computer screen monitor 15” or smaller, NTEU National will be provided formal notification and afforded the opportunity to reopen the issue of the size of the screen.

Section 6. AUTO AVAILABLE

The Employer has determined that:

A. Effective November 1, 1998, the Aspect classes of service referred to as “auto available” with “conditional wrap” will be replaced with the Autowrap class of service wherever it is used for those employees performing Customer Service operations. “Auto wrap” automatically moves employees into wrap after each call.

B. Employees will strive to resolve telephone inquiries (including account adjustments) while the customer is “on line.” Wrap time is appropriate in situations when the taxpayer does not wish to stay on the line and case documentation is required. Other situations that may warrant the employee being in wrap are if a case is complex and requires additional time to complete documentation or research, if there is a need to clean up the work area and manuals, or if there is need to prepare to take the next call.

C. There will be occasions when an employee determines the need to be off the phone as a result of a stressful customer contact, e.g., interaction with an irate customer. In these situations the employee will place themselves in idle status with reason code 6 (Break Time).

D. Employees will determine when to take the next call. Managers may discuss with employees the proper use of wrap time. Additionally, managers may address with employees the amount of wrap time used, based upon telephone monitoring and work reviews.

Section 7. STAFFING

A. The Employer has determined that staffing plans and scheduled Tours of Duty (TOD) should be aligned with projected Toll-free telephone traffic/call volume, and requires that the IRS balance the needs of the employees with those of the taxpayers. Moreover, the IRS commits that it will staff its workload requirements to the extent possible to avoid or minimize the need to make involuntary changes in an employee, 5 hours, days of work or tour of duty. To this end, the Employer has determined it will take the following actions to determine and cover the understaffed days, shifts and TODs.

1) Where positions are authorized, use seasonal employees newly converted to permanent positions and new appointments.
2) Share staffing plans with NTEU (nationally and locally) before each planning period as described elsewhere in this agreement.
3) Develop TOD’s reflective of the staffing plan and share with NTEU locally.
4) Discuss the following with NTEU:

a) Whether the local-office meets the requirements, it has a shortage of staff, or it has a surplus of staff for the assigned hours of service, and,
b) Whether the local office has a surplus of staff available for telephone work beyond the assigned hours of service. For each period this determination will factor in the proposed conversion of seasonal employees to permanent and new seasonal hires. It is recognized that his process will involve consideration of agent group qualifications that are needed as compared to agent group qualifications that are available. The employer will apply the agent qualification requirements for a tour uniformly, fairly and objectively in soliciting and placing employees.

5) Communicate the information gathered in (4)(a) & (b) above to the Operations Center, which will then promptly respond to the call sites with any adjustments that would be made as part of the national management of the call-router system, including adjusting of hours of telephone service.
6) Solicit volunteers first locally to make up staffing shortages. This will be done using the procedures outlined in Section B&C below.
7) Use overtime when possible to cover short term shortages.
8) Solicit requests for Alternative Work Schedules (AWS), Part-time Career Act (PTCA) schedules and eight (8) hour schedules covering any or all portions of the hours with staffing shortage, which will be approved subject to staffing.
9) Solicit qualified employees not permanently assigned to toll-free telephone work to perform such work during identified staffing shortage hours/TODs, within budgetary and staffing requirements.
10) Communicate remaining staffing shortages to the Operations Center. The Operations Center will then apportion this staffing shortage in an equitable fashion among the call sites.
11) Following the above, the Employer retains the right to engage in the short-term involuntary movement of employees off their current TODs or hours of work to place them in TODs and hours where there is a staffing shortage. Employees will be placed using the most recent EOD within required agent groups. If the Employer requires an individual employee to move involuntarily off his/her current TOD or hours for more than a total of eight (8) weeks in a calendar year, it must negotiate with the union to the extent provided by law. Nothing in this agreement or the negotiations leading up to this agreement, limit the union’s right to submit bargaining proposals. The parties recognize that resolution of the disputes as provided above, regarding the involuntary movement of employees for a total of eight (8) weeks in a calendar year may, to the extent impacting AWS, require a demonstration of an assertion of adverse impact consistent with the AWS statute.
12) Any, dispute flowing from (11) above will be resolved using the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) process described elsewhere in this agreement.

B. The staffing plans for each planning period will be presented to and discussed with NTEU at the local and national levels so that there is an understanding as to the specific staffing needs. The employer will solicit in writing for employees who wish to volunteer to change the hours of days of work, of their TODs to cover the forecasted staffing needs.

C. The employer commits to offering a number of incentives to employees to encourage them to volunteer for these understaffed periods. For example, it will offer the following at a minimum:

1) The option to work an AWS schedule that covers the understaffed periods. This could include a 4/10, 5/4/9, or flexitour with credit hours. Where an employee agrees to work credit hours to cover an understaffed period, he or she will be permitted work up to four (4) credit hours a day for a maximum of two days a week. These AWS off days will not be scheduled on Mondays or Saturdays due to projected workload.
2) The option to work any Part-time Career Act schedule that covers the understaffed periods. This could include a 3/10, 4/4/8, or similar arrangement. A PTCA schedule requires that an employee work within the range of 16-32 hours a week or 32-64 hours a pay period.
3) The option to move to a traditional eight (8) hour, five (5) day week TOD that covers understaffed periods.
4) Pursuant to local negotiations, any other incentives consistent with law, rule and regulation and which do not modify the national contracts. In those cases where the parties are unable to reach agreement they will utilize the same impasse resolution process found in Section 13 of this agreement. All local agreements must be submitted to the Office of Workforce relations for agency head review. Such local negotiations shall not delay the implementation of this agreement.
5) For employees who agree to make the change, the IRS will reinstate the employee to his or her previous TOD upon completion of the agreed period of the change, if requested by the employee.
6) Requests that exceed staffing requirements will be granted to the employee with the earliest EOD date.

D. Seasonal employees who volunteer for extended hour shifts will not be furloughed if that workload does not materialize. Instead, those employees will be processed back to their original furlough recall list.

Section 8. BLENDING/CROSS-TRAINING

A. The Employer has determined that employees on PD 92408 (Series GS-962 5/6/7/8) will be responsible for performing blended/cross trained work as described in the parties Memorandum Of Understanding dated September 25, 1998.

B. A pool of blended/cross trained employees will be available for work assignments based on customer needs, funding availability and workload requirements. The parties agree, it is in the best interest of the customer and the employee, to minimize the disruption and stress that occurs as employees are moved between different duties during the day. Thus, based on workload considerations, the employer has determined to avoid, whenever possible:

C. The Employer has determined that employees will be provided a reasonable amount of transition time (e.g., 5-10 minutes). When more time is needed (e.g., to move to another work station-or to close a case in process), the employee will discuss the situation with their manger. When the transition must take place immediately, the Employer will notify the employee. The employee will not open a new case once the need for transition has been identified.

D. Employees will be offered training which will enable employees to deal with performing duties in more than one functional area (e.g., stress relief training, conflict management, etc.). To this end, the Employer has determined that a reasonable amount of official time will be allotted for this training.

E. The Employer has determined that a GS-962, series SPD with unmeasured Performance Plan critical elements will be effective December 6, 1998 for Customer Service employees.

Section 9. PREDICTIVE DIALER

The predictive dialer is an automated system which makes outgoing calls to specified taxpayers. If there is no answer or an answering machine answers, the system re-calls the number at various times; if a person answers, the call is routed to a telephone assistor. Since the predictive dialer uses automation to dial telephone numbers and automatically updates the case file if there are no successful attempts to get an answer. It is an effective and efficient inventory management tool.

A. In order to effectively use this automated tool, the Employer has determined that the employee will answer the call and be permitted to place the taxpayer on hold for a reasonable period of time (usually thirty (30) seconds) to review the case file before discussing it with the taxpayer.

B. The parties recognize that the predictive dialer technology will exist only in the Buffalo Call Center at the present time. However, if the employer expands the use of the technology to other sites, NTEU National will be provided formal notification, and afforded the opportunity to negotiate to the extent provided by law.

Section 10. ANNUAL LEAVE

The parties have a shared interest in providing the employees, with opportunities to use annual leave. The parties recognize that workload considerations, primarily on Mondays for the Customer Service toll-free operations, may impact the approval of annual leave. The employer has determine the following guidelines will be used for annual leave approval:

A. It is inappropriate to declare that no annual may be taken during the filing season. Normally, Mondays and the 5 working days prior to and on April 15 th will present severe workload problems necessitating unusual limitations on the use of annual leave. However, the Employer recognizes that requests for sick leave, FMLA, or FFLA leave are not controlled by workload demands.

B. The Employer will work with the employees and NTEU to ensure that annual leave balances do not increase significantly due to the filing season restrictions on leave.

C. The Employer will implement a system for soliciting requests for annual leave which permits the Employer to plan ahead for periods of high leave demand. This solicitation will be done three (3) times a year, (i.e., for the January to June period, July to September period and October to December period) unless the local parties agree otherwise.

D. Under this agreement, each Call Center remains responsible for meeting its assigned staffing needs. However, in order to accommodate spring and winter school break needs, Call Center will coordinate their efforts to approve annual leave requests with CSOC to allow employees to take leave during the spring or winter school breaks that occur in their areas. In this regard the Call Centers will identify, by December 1, the local winter or spring school break period for their Call Center. The Call Center will forward the Call Center’s annual leave needs to the CSOC. The CSOC will attempt to balance these annual leave requests among Call Centers to ensure adequate staffing requirements.

Section 11. OVERTIME AND HOLIDAYS

A. The parties agree that every effort will be made to avoid mandatory overtime/holiday. When a need for overtime or holiday (O/H) work occurs, the employer will contact the affected chapter of NTEU to discuss equitable distribution. The parties are urged to solicit employees to determine how many hours of O/H work the employee(s) will volunteer to work and the days and hours on which the employee will work that O/H. These data should be used to plan for O/H work needs as provided for in B and C below. Unless otherwise agreed to locally, per Article 24 NORD/NC V, the following procedures for the equitable distribution of O/H hours will apply:

B. Volunteers for O/H work will be selected in the following order:

    6) Employees who volunteer to work O/H and fail to report to work on the scheduled O/H day do not have to be considered for the next O/H assignment.

C. If overtime is required as an extension of a TOD, the impacted employee will be provided ten (10) minutes, if needed, to make the required necessary arrangements regarding the overtime assignment.

D. When an employee is required to return to their place of employment for O/H work, they are entitled to two (2) hours compensation whether or not work is performed.

E. For all O/H work assignments, if scheduled workload does not materialize, the employee will make every effort to provide alternate work to allow the employee the opportunity to finish the scheduled O/H work. If alternate work cannot be provided, the employer will ask for volunteers to go home. Employees that do not volunteer will be provided one (1) hour notice before O/H work is terminated.

F. Whenever possible, the Employer will provide the same services to employees it normally provides during the employees normal TOD. Call Centers/Walk In Districts which expect to perform O/H work will jointly develop local procedures for services which may vary from site to site, i.e., security, food services, health services, building maintenance, and parking. If the parties cannot reach agreement, the Union has the right to negotiate over appropriate arrangements.

G. Nothing in this agreement removes employee rights to contact Union official during O/H hours.

Section 12. PROBLEM RESOLUTION PROGRAM 800-TELEPHONE SERVICE

In order to increase taxpayer awareness of and access to problem Resolution Program (PRP) assistance, a separate 800 number will be established.

A. The Employer has determined that:

B. In order to maximize service to taxpayers, the Employer will:

    3) Ensuring calls received on other 800 numbers (e.g., 1040, 8815) will be screened for PRP criteria and handled by that employee rather than transferring the taxpayer to the PRP 800 number.

C. To ensure a smooth transition, NTEU National will be afforded an opportunity to designate one (1) bargaining unit employee from each affected site (Richmond, Pittsburgh, Fresno Service Center and Atlanta Service Centers) as participants on the National PRP Implementation Team.

Section 13. GENERAL PROVISIONS

A. The scope of this agreement applies only to the terms and conditions specifically established by this agreement. Any and all policies and practices relating to the Customer Service operations that were in existence at the time this agreement was made effective, which are not inconsistent with this agreement will remain in place, whether they were established nationally, locally, or at some other level, absent specific negotiations to modify or terminate the practice or policy consistent with NORD/NC V. For example, if a specific clause of this agreement modifies or conflicts with a clause in a local agreement, then the terms of this agreement will control. However, absent that, the terms of the local agreement will control. The only impact the parties intend to have on policies and practices are those established by the specific wording of this agreement.

B. This agreement will be effective upon approval by the Department or on the 31 st day after submission to the Department for approval, whichever comes first. It will remain in effect for yearly periods thereafter unless either party serves the other party with written notice during the month of April of its desire to modify or terminate this agreement. The parties agree to use the same impasse resolution process as used in reaching this agreement; however they will not be bound to use the facilitation process previously used. If this agreement is not reopened at that time, it will continue for yearly periods thereafter with either party retaining the right to reopen each April. This agreement will be coterminous with the NORD/NC V Agreements.

C. Alternative Dispute Resolution Process (ADR)

D. Communication Process

E. Joint Implementation Team