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By: FEDweek StaffComplaints by veterans that federal agencies are not honoring their preference have decreased in recent years, MSPB has said in a review on the 20th anniversary of the Veterans Employment Opportunities Act, which created new ways for them to enforce those rights.
Under that law–passed after complaints that agencies were finding ways around veterans’ preference in hiring and RIF protections–veterans may file a complaint with the Labor Department and if dissatisfied may file an appeal with MSPB and, under some circumstances, in federal court. The law also granted most veterans the right to compete for employment under merit promotion procedures when an agency accepts applications from outside its own workforce and made it a prohibited personnel practice to knowingly violate a veterans’ preference requirement.
A recent MSPB publication noted that over 2012 to 2017, the number of complaints filed at Labor dropped from 615 to 383 and those filed at MSPB from 197 to 149. Reasons could include the generally more positive job prospects for veterans overall and the government’s emphasis on hiring veterans, it said.
It added that the law was the basis for MSPB finding that two former special hiring programs, the Outstanding Scholar Program and the Federal Career Intern Program, violated veterans preference rights. Both programs were discontinued following those rulings.
However, it noted that the VEOA did not end an agency’s right to cancel a vacancy announcement after applications had been received and a veteran appeared at the top of the certificate. That had been one of the major complaints of veterans in the lead-up to enactment of the law.
