AFGE’s National Veterans Affairs Council (NVAC) and the Department of Veterans Affairs are getting ready to renegotiate a new contract following a historic July 20 settlement in which the VA agreed to restore workplace rights and overturn anti-worker policies implemented by the Trump administration during the past four years.
The Council and the VA are scheduled to return to the bargaining table on January 31, 2022. The union is doing a survey to ask members what’s important to them and what they want to see in the next contract. We are urging VA members to complete it here.
The July 20 settlement contains ground rules that outline the parameters for the upcoming negotiations of the new collective bargaining agreement, which will shape the relationship between VA workers and management for years to come.
Under this settlement, the VA and NVAC have agreed to restart negotiations with a “limited reopener,” which will only include 12 contract articles. Each side selected 6 articles to reopen and renegotiate from the 2011 Master Agreement. That means 55 other articles from the 2011 Master Agreement will be “rolled over” in the next contract, plus the Preamble and Duration of Agreement provisions.
Both parties have also agreed to disregard previous bargaining history from 2017-21, including proposals, grievances, tentative agreements, as well as last November’s decision by the Federal Service Impasses Panel, which would have made anti-worker changes to the 2011 Master Agreement.
This settlement resolved more than 10 of AFGE NVAC’s national grievances alleging bad faith bargaining on the part of the VA, several of which were sustained in arbitration.
Here’s a quick look at key parts of the contract that will be on the table in upcoming negotiations with the VA. The party that selected to reopen the article is noted in parenthesis below as (VA) or (NVAC).
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