Originally published VA says it’s ended most collective bargaining agreements on by https://federalnewsnetwork.com/veterans-affairs/2025/08/va-says-its-ended-most-collective-bargaining-agreements/ at Federal News Network
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The Department of Veterans Affairs said Wednesday it was terminating most of its contracts with federal employee unions, one of the most significant consequences to date of a March executive order that sought to eliminate collective bargaining across a large swath of agencies on “national security” grounds.
In a statement, the department said it had notified five large unions that VA was ending their collective bargaining agreements, effective immediately. The affected unions are the American Federation of Government Employees, the National Association of Government Employees, the National Federation of Federal Employees, the National Nurses Organizing Committee/National Nurses United, and the Service Employees International Union.
According to federal employment records, up until Wednesday, VA had more than 377,000 employees represented by unions out of a total workforce of 483,000. The only exceptions to the contract terminations were for police, firefighters and security personnel who were exempted from the executive order. Officials said there were roughly 4,000 employees in those exempt groups.
Although the initial March order made use of a legal provision that allows the President to suspend collective bargaining for national security reasons, VA’s Wednesday announcement made no reference to national security. Instead, department officials said they were ending the agreements because unions “have repeatedly opposed significant, bipartisan VA reforms and rewarded bad employees for misconduct.” They said ending collective bargaining for VA employees would allow those workers to spend more time with veterans.
“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.”
The American Federation of Government Employees, which represented the vast majority of VA’s unionized workforce — 319,000 employees — said in a statement that the contract terminations were an “outrage.”
“The real reason Collins wants AFGE out of the VA is because we have successfully fought against disastrous, anti-veteran recommendations from the Asset Infrastructure Review Commission which would have shut down several rural VA hospitals and clinics, opposed the Trump administration’s plan to dismantle veteran health care through the cutting of 83,000 jobs, and consistently educated the American people about how private, for-profit veteran healthcare is more expensive and results in worse outcomes for veterans,” said Everett Kelley, AFGE’s national president. “We don’t apologize for protecting veteran healthcare and will continue to fight for our members and the veterans they care for.”
The unions have been seeking to block enforcement of the executive order in court, but recent appeals court decisions have given the Trump administration the green light to proceed with the contract terminations while lawsuits continue to work their way through the judicial system.
Last week, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals granted an administration request to stay a lower court ruling which found that the anti-union EO was a form of retaliation for the labor organizations’ First Amendment protected speech. That claim was based, in part, on a White House fact sheet which said the President signed the order because unions were “hostile” to his policies, and that he “supports constructive partnerships with unions who work with him.”
However, the appeals court found that the President likely would have terminated the contracts even if the unions’ constitutionally-protected speech weren’t an issue.
“On its face, the order does not express any retaliatory animus. Instead, it conveys the President’s determination that the excluded agencies have primary functions implicating national security and cannot be subjected to the [Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute] consistent with national security,” the three judge panel wrote in its Aug. 1 opinion. “Even accepting for purposes of argument that certain statements in the fact sheet reflect a degree of retaliatory animus toward plaintiffs’ First Amendment activities, the fact sheet, taken as a whole, also demonstrates the president’s focus on national security.”
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Originally published VA says it’s ended most collective bargaining agreements on by https://federalnewsnetwork.com/veterans-affairs/2025/08/va-says-its-ended-most-collective-bargaining-agreements/ at Federal News Network
Originally published Federal News Network
