The Department of Veteran Affairs said it's terminating
collective bargaining agreements for most VA employees, including at least 16,000 nurses.
The move affects several unions -- including National Nurses United (NNU) and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) -- and an estimated 400,000 workers. Contracts for 4,000 police officers, security guards, and firefighters won't be affected, the VA said.
The action follows an executive order ending collective bargaining rights for many federal employees, which has been challenged by a lawsuit brought by the affected unions that's currently working its way through the courts.
In a press release, the VA said the change would increase the time that staff can spend with veterans, and enable evaluation of employees on performance rather than by their contracts.
But the NNU said in a press release that the decision amounted to "class warfare against working people of America."
"NNU recognizes this effort to erase our collective bargaining agreements is a blatant attempt to bust our unions and to silence the nurses and workers who are standing on the frontlines to protect our country's fundamental institutions," the organization stated in the release.
"This administration is marching toward the privatization of veteran care so they can move billions of taxpayer money out of the VA system, which is proven to provide excellent veteran-centric care, and into the coffers of private healthcare corporations run by billionaires," the statement continued.
In its statement, SEIU said that "generations of union workers at the VA fought for strong union contracts that gave them a voice on the job to advocate for better working conditions and better outcomes for our nation's veterans. Canceling union contracts at the VA is a clear attempt to silence public workers and their unions who have spoken out against this administration's policies."
Rebecca Givan, PhD, a labor studies professor at Rutgers University in New Jersey, called the VA's decision "an extreme measure to try to crush the voice of frontline healthcare providers" that would diminish the quality of care for veterans.
"It's documented that clinical outcomes are better when healthcare workers are unionized, especially unionized nurses," Givan told MedPage Today. "And so what we will see is VA facilities where healthcare providers no longer have the protection to speak up about patient care issues."
While the VA pointed to the cost-saving measures of its decision, Givan said that dealing with union representation "is an investment in a workforce that has a voice, in due process and in fairness, and issues will be dealt with in other ways that can be costly."
For instance, Givan said, an increase in turnover is likely to follow, and "turnover is costly." In the absence of collective bargaining, she added, litigation will increase, and litigation is also costly.
The VA press release claimed that its "employee unions have repeatedly opposed significant, bipartisan VA reforms and rewarded bad employees."
While Givan couldn't speak to those specific claims, she did say that it's typical for unions to take stands on legislation and other policy issues.
"Regardless of whether the employer agrees with those positions, the collective bargaining agreement in the past has always been a binding contract," she said. Givan noted that she can't stop paying rent because she doesn't agree with a position her landlord takes on a political issue.
Givan described the move as an event as important in labor history as Ronald Reagan firing air traffic controllers. It is, she said, "a colossal attack on workers' rights to organize together and bargain collectively, and it's also an attack on the binding nature of contracts that parties have entered into freely."
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