VA: Total cost of settlement expected to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Image: S and S Imaging/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffThe VA and the AFGE union have reached a settlement in a complaint over the department’s use of special disciplinary powers, resulting in what the department said could be hundreds of millions of dollars in back pay to employees who were fired or otherwise disciplined under those procedures.
That follows rulings from the FLRA that the department violated labor law by failing to bargaining over the “impact and implementation” of authorities it received in 2017. It stopped using them earlier this year, saying they had mainly resulted in tying up the VA in litigation.
The House Veterans Affairs Committee recently approved a bill to require the department to start using those authorities, which included a number of management-friendly provisions including lowering its burden of proof on an appeal by an employee, while also broadening those special powers in several ways (see related story).
Said the VA, “As part of the agreement, many former VA employees will have the option either to return to work at VA or receive compensation in lieu of being reinstated. However, according to the terms of the agreement, hundreds of former VA employees who the VA and AFGE mutually agree were terminated for grievous misconduct will not be eligible to return to work.”
“The total cost of this settlement is expected to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars, with the exact figure being determined over the coming years by how many former employees elect to return to VA. The associated costs represent a fair agreement between both parties,” it said.
In the statement the VA repeated arguments it made in a recent hearing against reviving the broader authorities, saying they had been “rendered ineffective and unusable by years of litigation and adverse administrative and court decisions” and that even without them, it is “confident that it currently has the necessary authorities to manage its workforce and hold employees accountable for misconduct and poor performance.”
The union had complained from the outset that the authorities were used disproportionately against rank and file employees even though the law creating them had been passed as a reaction to a series of scandals involving managers and executives. The AFGE, which represents about two-thirds of the VA’s workforce, has said that about 5,000 of its members were disciplined under those procedures.
The VA and the AFGE recently reached a contract agreement which, if ratified by the union’s members and receiving the department’s final endorsement, would largely extend a prior agreement by another three years while adding provisions regarding speeding up hiring and retention incentives.
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