Contact:
Tim Kauffman
202-639-6405/202-374-6491
[email protected]
WASHINGTON – The American Federation of Government Employees is proud to announce it has reached agreement with the Defense Health Agency on an interim master labor agreement covering 38,000 bargaining unit employees at the agency who are now represented by the union.
“This agreement is effective immediately and ensures basic union rights and protections for all of the DHA employees now represented by AFGE,” AFGE National President Everett Kelley said.
The new agency, mandated by Congress in 2017, consolidates 45,000 health care employees who previously worked for the various military services. It’s the largest reorganization in the Defense Department since 1947.
The new interim agreement is based primarily on a series of agreements negotiated between AFGE Local 4200 and the agency to represent about 2,500 employees at DHA headquarters, which was the first DHA unit that AFGE won the right to represent in 2022.
AFGE will be training locals on the new contract starting next month and will also be working with the agency to schedule joint labor-management trainings on the new agreement.
Concurrently with negotiations on the interim agreement, AFGE has been working to establish a new union council to represent and organize employees at the new agency. Once finalized, the DHA council will become one of the five largest agency-level bargaining units within AFGE.
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