IRS workers vacate Kansas City offices due to the coronavirus exposure they feared
IRS workers inside the sprawling campus on Pershing Road were already worried about COVID-19 exposure, charging that they were forced to share desks and equipment and that safety measures were not adequate.
On Wednesday, their fears were realized. Local Internal Revenue Service managers received an email that they were instructed to pass along to staff. The title was printed in bold, red letters:
“Attention: All Kansas City Campus Employees
An employee at our campus sought medical attention due to potential exposure to COVID-19 coronavirus and is in quarantine due to a presumptive positive confirmation for COVID-19. Out of an abundance of caution, additional cleaning of IRS workspace(s) including the bathroom, cafeteria and the extracting area have been or will be completed...”
Post 66 of the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents IRS workers in the Kansas City area, passed along more information. The building would be closed effective March 26 — but only for two weeks — through April 8, later amended to April 9.
“During this time frame, no employees will be allowed in the building for any reason,” the notice said.
“It took too long,” said Sarah Randall, a 73-year-old IRS seasonal employee. “Just like they take too long for everything.”
One Kansas City employee, who was continuing to go to work because she felt a duty to process people’s tax returns, showed up Wednesday to see the cafeteria cordoned off with caution tape. She then left for home.
‘“I was not happy with the conditions. I really felt like we were taking a big risk with everybody’s health,” said the woman, a season worker who is not a union member. She spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of losing her job. “We work extremely close to each other. We use all the same equipment. We weren’t provided with anything like gloves. We were just given a little more time to wash hands during the day, that kind of stuff.”
Union leaders told The Star recently that, despite mounting health advisories to stay home, an unknown number of employees — at least 100 or more — were still working alongside each other inside the complex, sharing desks and equipment.
Their jobs required them to work in close proximity, thumb through the same paper tax returns as their co-workers, share desks, and office equipment. They were given little access to hand sanitizers, Clorox wipes or other protective measures. They felt the federal government, for the purposes of processing tax returns, was imperiling the health of federal workers.
The Star’s request for explanation from an IRS spokesman in Washington, D.C., was not answered. He did point to a news release, issued Tuesday, stating that to “protect employees and taxpayers,” the IRS has scaled back operations to focus on “mission-critical activities” and was relying on guidance about the coronavirus from federal and state health officials.
In response to the upheaval caused by the virus, the federal income tax filing due date has been extended from April 15 to July 15.
The IRS in Kansas City employs about 5,000 workers during tax season — full-time, part-time and seasonal. During the COVID-19 crisis, most employees had already been told to work from home. Before Wednesday, others, whose jobs could not be done at home, were given the option to take time off or they could “volunteer,” the anonymous employee said, to stay over the next two weeks with pay to complete tax returns.
Under the metrowide stay-at-home order that took effect Tuesday, all businesses not considered “essential” would be closed.
Workers said they were told that as a federal agency doing essential business, the IRS was exempt from the order. Employees were already concerned about their safety prior to the edict.
“We have had very slow response for employees’ requests for safety,” Shannon Ellis, president of the local union, told The Star last week. “As employees, we don’t feel like they’re providing a safe work environment.”
Ellis said the IRS had been attempting to have 50% of its employees at the Pershing campus work from home. But even half of 5,000 employees is still a lot of people.
“Our work is critical, and the employees understand that we have important jobs here,” Ellis said. “When we have to make a decision between our safety and safety of loved ones, it’s not right, it’s not fair. They (IRS) should have acted much sooner than this.”
Randall, the seasonal employee, had walked off the job last week because she was concerned about the spread of COVID-19.
She has underlying health issues. She went down to the building on Wednesday to sign some paperwork and said the campus resembled a “ghost town.”
News of a coronavirus exposure at the IRS campus rattled her.
“I’m scared to death,” Randall said. “I’m at that age.”
This story was originally published March 25, 2020 at 4:25 PM.
