The American Federation of Government Employees has dug in its heels amid criticism aimed at organized labor within the Department of Veterans Affairs in the context of wait time problems at the VA, including for the use of official time for conducting union business – in particular, allegations that employees spend too much time on union business rather than the department’s and that unions are behind burdensome workforce inflexibilities.
AFGE has responded to the widening investigations stemming from problems uncovered at the Phoenix HCS by calling for the hiring of doctors, nurses and support staff, and to immediately fill hundreds of physician vacancies, saying problems with wait times for health care at the VA are a direct result of understaffing.
“The prevalence of long wait lists are a symptom of the vast understaffing of VA medical facilities,” argued AFGE president David Cox in calling for a “change in culture” at the department and defending AFGE members for sounding “the alarm on poor management practices and inadequate staffing time and time again.”
