The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has been dragging its feet and failed to reach a single agreement with AFGE after 14 weeks of contract negotiations.
The latest round of negotiations, session #7, took place in Long Beach, Calif., between Aug. 23 and Sept. 1. The parties have discussed nine of the 12 articles on the table, spending the vast majority of time waiting for the VA to return from private caucus and negotiate in good faith with AFGE’s National VA Council. Under the leadership of Chief Negotiator Kurt Martin, the VA has not reached a single agreement with NVAC.
Despite promises from President Biden and Secretary McDonough to empower workers and strengthen collective bargaining rights, VA negotiators are championing many of the same proposals that we fought against in the Trump Administration.
We’ve requested data from the VA so that we can fight back against their anti-worker proposals, like eliminating performance improvement plans and reducing minimum appraisal periods, but the data only proves our point. The 2011 Master Agreement is working for the VA and AFGE bargaining unit employees. It is the strongest contract in the federal government.
“I think the most troubling thing to me is an attitude at the table of failing to recognize the union's role in safeguarding the public interest,” said NVAC First Executive Vice President MJ Burke, who is a member of the AFGE negotiating team. “This is especially true, going to the issue of employee retention of critical employees in matters of their conditions of employment.”
“Quite frankly, either it seems that they seem to believe a union contract provision has no role to play in this regard, or they refuse to acknowledge granting managers large amount of discretion or non-accountability will inevitably create downstream effects for the retention of these same critical employees,” she added.
Coming up in D.C.
NVAC previously filed two national grievances against the VA for engaging in bad faith bargaining at the table, insisting that we waive our statutory right to bargain, and violations of the Ground Rules. An arbitration hearing will be held on Oct. 5-6 in Washington, D.C. We’re also waiting for Secretary McDonough to respond to the VA Chief Negotiator’s request that Title 38 awards be taken off the table.
During the week of Sept. 12, NVAC leaders will be meeting with VA officials in Washington, D.C. for our semiannual labor-management relations meeting. We’ll make sure our members’ voice is heard and that VA leaders know what’s taking place at the bargaining table.
AFGE has launched a petition calling on Secretary McDonough to replace Kurt Martin and appoint a Chief Negotiator who will fulfil President Biden’s promise to be a model employer for federal employees. Click here to sign on to our #ReplaceKurt petition.
The negotiating team will be in Washington, D.C. at VA Central Office on Sept. 19-30 for bargaining session #8.