Union Suit Against Intern Program May Revive Debate on Fairness in Hiring

The Federal Career Intern Program has become one of the most popular ways for federal agencies to recruit on college campuses and hire young professionals.

Agencies may hire interns at any time, do not have to advertise the job openings in advance, and can take advantage of the two-year job tryouts to evaluate the interns before deciding whether to offer them permanent civil service jobs.

Under regulations issued in 2000 and 2005, some agencies have used the intern program to build a recruitment pipeline to replace baby boomers who retire as well as to beef up law enforcement and other specialized workforces. The interns are paid the same as other entry-level government workers.

But the popular hiring program was challenged in federal court yesterday by the National Treasury Employees Union, which asserted that the intern program "has become the hiring method of choice" and has undermined century-old laws that require federal jobs to be filled through fair and open competition with applicants afforded equal opportunity.

The union asked the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to throw out the program's regulations and to stop agencies from using the hiring program.

The lawsuit seems likely to reopen debate over where to draw the line on ensuring fair and open competition for federal jobs while allowing the government to become more competitive in the "war for talent" with Fortune 500 companies and large nonprofit organizations.

In its lawsuit, the union said the intern program has become the primary method for hiring revenue officers and revenue agents at the Internal Revenue Service, customs and border protection officers at the Department of Homeland Security and financial institution specialists at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. NTEU represents thousands of employees at the three agencies.

The union said the intern program had deprived current employees of chances for promotions and other career opportunities.

NTEU also objected to the program's rule that places interns on probation for two years, instead of the one year that generally applies to civil service jobs, and to an IRS decision to extend the probation to three years for revenue agents. Lengthy probation periods mean the employees have to wait too long to gain job rights that allow them to contest major disciplinary actions, the union said.

The Office of Personnel Management, the defendant in the suit, and the IRS said the suit was under review and declined to comment. A spokesman for Customs and Border Protection said the agency's hiring practices follow federal law and "encourage the selection of qualified candidates." The FDIC described its hiring process as highly competitive.

By most accounts, federal managers see the internships as a way to hire faster and place new employees into training programs that monitor their job performance and conduct. Speedy hiring has become especially important at Homeland Security, which has been given extra money by the White House and Congress to improve border security and reduce the threat of terrorist attacks.

The FDIC has used the intern program to recruit bank examiners at about 600 colleges. In the past six months, the FDIC received more than 1,100 applications for 75 such jobs, the agency said.

Overall, the government hired more than 11,000 people through the intern program in fiscal 2005, the union said yesterday.

Union Movement at the GAO

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The International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers announced yesterday that it has launched a union-organizing campaign to represent employees at the Government Accountability Office, the congressional auditing and investigations agency.

The union, an affiliate of the AFL-CIO, represents federal scientists, engineers, immigration and administrative law judges and others, including the staff at the Congressional Research Service. A group of GAO analysts approached the CRS local union several months ago about forming an organizing committee, the union said.

Last year, David M. Walker, head of the GAO, completed a restructuring of the agency's pay system after an outside report showed that some GAO analysts were underpaid and some overpaid. The changes have created morale problems at the GAO, with some analysts feeling they had been demoted and others concerned about losing out on pay raises they had counted on receiving.

Stephen Barr's e-mail address isbarrs@washpost.com.