About 50 Internal Revenue Bureau employees were back on the job Thursday after a job action at IRB offices on both St. Thomas and St. Croix that began Monday and lasted through Wednesday afternoon.
On St. Thomas, the employees actually staged in a sit-in at the office library in Long Bay, refusing to go back to their work stations until director Claudette Farrington heard their concerns.
Their eventual audience was with not only Farrington but also Government House chief labor negotiator Karen Andrews, union leader Luis "Tito" Morales and Lt. Gov. Gerard Luz James II. The employees complained about staff reductions and a backlog of work and charged that some employees in the bureau were being given preferential treatment.
One BIR employee told the Source that the union did not endorse the work stoppage. "It was strictly the workers wanting to vent their frustrations," the individual said.
