The Trump administration stripped most unionized Veterans Affairs workers in Pittsburgh of labor protections last week — part of an unprecedented plan to terminate collective bargaining agreements with federal unions.
Affected employees include groundskeepers, transportation workers, nurses and doctors. As a result of the administration's move, managers now have the ability to impose new working conditions without consulting the five unions that represent workers. Employees have also lost the right to contest such actions through a grievance process.
The Department of Veterans Affairs said Wednesday the decision will improve services and benefits at the agency's more than 2,000 healthcare facilities and outpatient clinics.
"Too often, unions that represent VA employees fight against the best interests of Veterans while protecting and rewarding bad workers," VA Secretary Doug Collins said in a statement. "We're making sure VA resources and employees are singularly focused on the job we were sent here to do: providing top-notch care and service to those who wore the uniform."
But Philip Glover, national vice president for American Federation of Government Employees District 3, said the loss of collective bargaining rights will make it more difficult for VA employees to do their jobs.
"This has nothing to do with veterans care," Glover said.
"There's not gonna be a change in how we lobby and how we work for our members, but it can affect day-to-day stuff at the workplace that we normally would be brought in to troubleshoot or to triage," like routine disputes over scheduling or missed overtime pay, he said. He added that any potential cost savings would be limited, as the unions only negotiate over working conditions, not pay.
Between 70 and 75% of VA employees were represented by a union, according to a VA spokesperson. That includes up to 10,000 VA employees in Pennsylvania who are represented by AFGE, one of the largest unions for federal employees.
The change stems from an executive order issued by President Donald Trump earlier this year instructing multiple government agencies to break off union agreements. Though the effort was halted by a lawsuit over the order, a federal appeals court recently ruled Trump's plan can move forward.
Trump has argued the measure is necessary to protect national security, but Glover called the contract terminations "pure retaliation" against AFGE and other unions participating in lawsuits challenging Trump administration policies.
"It's a political document to take out people that don't agree with him," he said.
Glover, a veteran himself, pushed back against assertions that ending union contracts would improve national security, noting that Trump's order protects some law enforcement union contracts while gutting those for other frontline workers.
"A nurse and doctor taking care of a veteran … is certainly not [a threat] to national security," he added.
Pennsylvania Congressman Chris Deluzio, who is a Navy veteran, argued the terminations are part of a Trump administration attempt to weaken and dismantle the VA.
"Union-busting the hardworking men and women at the VA — many of whom are veterans themselves — is all part of their plan to make it easier to fire VA workers so that they can keep privatizing and outsourcing care," Deluzio said in a statement.
Allegheny-Fayette Central Labor Council President Darrin Kelly called it a "shameful betrayal of American veterans and the union workers who serve them."
"Make no mistake: this decision will cause our veterans to suffer," he said in a statement. "Never in a thousand years did we ever think that corporate tax cuts and profits for billionaires would come at the cost of caring for the fighting men and women of our great country. But that is what this administration is doing."
Still, AFGE's Glover said the union will keep fighting: He said lawyers are currently reviewing the group's legal options.
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