FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 11, 2026
June 11, 2026
Contact:
Tim Kauffman
202-374-6491
[email protected]
Proposed “Veterans” Bill Would Betray Military Heroes and Workers Who Care For Them, Largest VA Labor Union Says
Categories:
VA, Congress
Massive bill would push more veterans to private care and cut their earned benefits while stripping VA health care workers of their rights, AFGE says
WASHINGTON – The American Federation of Government Employees is urging members of Congress to reject legislation introduced yesterday that would undercut earned benefits for our nation’s military veterans, strip workplace rights and protections from thousands of psychologists at the Department of Veterans Affairs, and push more veterans outside the VA for their health care.
The Take Care of America’s Veterans Act (H.R. 9237, S. 4744) is a massive, 554-page legislative package that consolidates more than 60 separate bills. While the bill package proposes to improve veterans’ health care and benefits, it would in fact do the opposite.
The bill includes a provision that would convert VA psychologists, roughly 5,000 of whom are represented by AFGE, to the Title 38 personnel system, which would result in significant cuts to their current collective bargaining rights. The collective bargaining rights of Title 38 employees are limited by statute. In practice, this means that VA does not allow them to negotiate over routine workplace issues like scheduling or raise grievances over things like staffing shortages that undermine patient care or in situations where the VA fails to provide promotion and advancement opportunities that would attract health care workers to the VA. Title 38 employees also not allowed to utilize the grievance process to challenge management’s failure to pay them correctly or when the VA violates its own policies.
“Eliminating these workplace rights and protections will do nothing to improve the delivery of health care services to our nation’s veterans – in fact, it will have the opposite effect because it will directly impair the VA’s ability to recruit and retain the quality health care professionals our veterans deserve,” said AFGE National President Everett Kelley, who is a U.S. Army veteran.
Another provision in the bill would expand the use of private, for-profit health care – despite reports concluding that uncontrolled outsourcing by the VA is putting veterans’ care at risk.
“Pushing more veterans to go outside the VA for their care increases costs to taxpayers while diminishing the quality of care that our veterans deserve to receive. I don’t think that’s any way to take care of America’s veterans, and I urge lawmakers to reject this bill when it comes up for a vote,” AFGE National VA Council President MJ Burke said.
Veterans’ groups including the Disabled Veterans of America and members of Congress including Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee Ranking Member Richard Blumenthal also have come out in strong opposition to the bill – largely due to provisions that would cut at least $60 billion from veterans’ benefits over the next decade.
About one-fourth of all federal employees are veterans, compared to just 5% of the overall U.S. workforce.
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