VA employees caught working for the union not veterans
Chief Tango sends us a link from The Blaze about some Congressional inquiries into the work that Department of Veterans’ Affairs employees are doing instead of the job they were hired to do;
Senators Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) in a letter addressed to Secretary of Veteran Affairs Eric Shinseki claim that from January 1, 2012 through February 2013, 188 VA employees were paid full-time to do union-related work instead of assisting the nation’s veterans.
“Recently, it has come to our attention that a number of VA employees are paid government salaries, funded entirely by taxpayers, to perform work totally unrelated to their formal governmental duties,” the letter reads.
“In a practice known as ‘official time’ taxpayers pay for federal employees to perform union duties instead of their formal jobs they were initially hired to do,” it adds. “Federal employees not serving veterans during official time could lead to the failure of VA’s top goals and the well-being of those who have sacrificed in the service our nation, could be compromised. “
Of course, the Congressmen are depending on Shinseki to answer their questions honestly, that will never happen. I sat directly behind him once and listened to him lie to Congress while he was still in uniform. We’ve seen him lie about the numbers of phony POWs that the VA is compensating erroneously. We ain’t gettin’ no truth from him on this either.
Category: Veterans' Affairs Department
WTF!?!?
Gee, thanks for making my day sooooo much better, Jonn. I appreciate that shit.
It’s in the contract negotiated between the Unions and the VA. Honestly, while I am not a huge fan of the Union, if you could spend one day in General Hospital here, you would see why we need the Union to represent employees in matters with management. Lot of power hungry and vindictive pricks running around here. It’s pretty disgusting and demoralizing at times.
It is a full time job for some of these Reps. Though I know of others here who are full time Doctors and they do not skimp on treating the Veterans to take care of Union business. One in particular is just an amazing Doc.
Another day another government organization with no accountability.
Thanks, Obama!
Our union has a provision for union officers to use time donated by members allowing them to attend to union business with out being on duty. It is primarily used during contract negotiations and member representation during any disciplinary hearings.
This covers any overtime for and avoids the state picking up the tab.
It is known as the Union Leave Bank, I think this is a very good way to avoid conflicts and costly investigations regarding who is paying for what.
Further, the system is audited and closely watched by members, as we don’t trust management as far as we could throw them not to use this in an end run around members on the floor.
Not a big union fan BUT…when management sucks and VA management sucks, I begin to understand the need for it. However, Union or non-union the VA employees “customer” is the Vet and no one else. That is the problem. Vets are claim numbers not customers to be served.
Well if it’s a union rep officer listening to someone’s complaint about abuses from those above, or taking a vote or other official union business… that’s part of being a unionized workplace. If your boss is pressuring you for something illegal and/or in violation of the contract you have to have the freedom to bring it up to the right chain of attention. Usually such things do not take up much time unless it becomes serious and involves a sit-down meetinhg with management (which still doesn’t take a lot of time).
If it’s photocopying letters and sending out mailings, that should be done at a union office, but the story is rather nonspecific on what it is or how much time it is.
The issue is not that there are shop stewards, but who is paying them. If the Joint Ethics Regulation is any guide, then a shop steward who performs VA work, such as a nurse doing a rotation in ER, the shop steward gets paid by the VA (and us).
If the shop steward is performing work for the union, then the union (and its members) pay for that time.
Separate the pots of money, and then folks won’t have issues.
That’s normal operation though, a person does not clock out and clock in to listen to someone for 8 minutes explain how her boss is harassing her. It’s not practical.
the other alternative is to hire people specifically to stand around doing nothing but waiting for these kinds of things, and even if paid by the union the VA would have to compensate the union for that in the next renegotiation given it’s the VA’s workplace.
This is SOP near as I can tell. Blaze isn’t exactly a good one for sharing specific info though
Isanova: for many Federal union reps, exactly what you describe is what happens.
DaveO: the JER is reasonable guidline for folks who have part-time responsibilities as a Federal union rep. However, in practice many Federal union representatives are paid full-time Federal employees to execute that function full-time due to negotiations between the union and the agency concerned. They’re supposed to spend their full workday on employee support – e.g., management-labor relations, grievance processing and defense, etc . . . , which ostensibly support the workers they represent and aren’t supposed to do work that benefits solely their union. Representing their union and members to management is the job the Federal government is paying them to do full-time. Whether it’s a good idea or not is a matter of opinion.
In such cases, they’re supposed to do any “purely union” business on their own time and the union’s nickle. I have my own opinion on how well that’s enforced.
Further proof that there are simply too many folks on the payroll. They really wouldn’t have time for all the whining if they concentrated on their jobs.
I like this headline better: “VA Employees Caught Working”
I’m a Teamsters shop steward at UPS. Any time that I spend dealing with grievances or other stuff is paid for by the company. Which is not run by the government.
@11, you know damn well in the entire history of the VA not one has ever been popped hot on a UA for speed…
@ #12: I fully support your right to belong to a union (or not) and that of a company to employ union members (or not).
Who are these “public service” unions supposed to be negotiating with? They are already protected by civil service rules, unless they voluntarily take a will and pleasure job. “The company” they work (assuming they actually do any) for is us!
I am still of the opinion that the Resident-in-Chief should call an admin unit to active duty with the specific job of sorting out the monkey-fuck that is the backlog.
But, hey, if the VA wants to help their union allies more than the people they were designed to help, let them. I mean, the more vets who commit suicide, the less work, right?
This entire mess sickens me.
Public service unions, a necessity from bad management, but the governmnet should be the last place you would find a bad manager. Made myself laugh there. It’s one oof the first places where bad management is rewarded by promotins..,peter principle anyone? Remember these peoople were “bad” enough that they could noot make it outside of “government”. Yes there is the good one every now and then, but …
OWB: here’s the theory as I see it regarding Federal unions. This may not hold true for state/local. I’m not saying I agree or approve what follows, but it’s the current rationale as I understand it.
Civil service rules alone would allow for the possibility of bad management screwing their rank-and-file workers – e.g., favoritism, unfair treatment, personal vendettas, etc . . . . While civil service rules do provide some protection, civil service disciplinary and grievance procedures place the rank-and-file employee at a severe disadvantage (the government agency will have a legal staff; most employees don’t keep a personal lawyer experienced in Federal personnel matters on retainer). It would be economically prohibitive for most rank-and-file employees to equalize this situation in most routine grievance or disciplinary proceedings.
The Federal government has elected to level the playing field by allowing limited employee unions. These unions cannot strike (as a bunch of former air traffic controllers found out the hard way in 1981) and cannot compel membership, even in states where union shops are allowed. (This is IMO one reason why only around 1/3 of Federal civilian employees are union members.) However, these unions can do most of what other unions do: negotiate working conditions, raise grievances, advise and defend employees in grievances/arbitration/disciplinary matters, etc . . . .
The same effect IMO could have been achieved by beefing up agencies’ IG legal staffs with a “employee advocate” section and disallowing unions. For whatever reason, the Federal government elected not to go that route.
“That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.” (smile)
@11 LMAO but it is true!
I have to still say, again, that the VA forgets that the Vets they serve are their “customers” and as such should be served with dignity and EXPEDIENCY. A private hospital run like the VA would be out of business in a week. Vets ARE NOT JUST CLAIM NUMBERS! When I was in service I thought they had a lot of, wait in line, take this form to window X, the wait time is X hours, but the VA is by far worse. Waiting still, 14 months for a simple hearing test approval. Not the actual aids if I should need them, just a test. I finally asked the question, if I use my private insurance to get the test and bring the results will it speed things up? Answer, NO. We don’t act on tests we did not do and it would not move the process forward any faster. I gave up, even though it is service related hearing loss. I know that my hearing loss issue is truly a non-issue compared to the big time medical help some of you are needing and waiting for. I feel bad for you having to go through all that you have to go through to get the help you EARNED and let me emphasize again, EARNED. My point is, I guess, the VA is upside down and backwards in their attitude toward the men and women they are suppose to be SERVING!
Nothing new here. We’ve all known the VA isn’t interested in doing the job they were hired to, and little is being done about it. In my mind, it’s just another government agency that is poorly led, has no oversight, and does what it wants. The news will report on it, but nothing will get done.
Even if this situation is common or normal according to some of the comm enters above, the optics of having the VA pay people to work for the union is asinine.
The purpose of the union is to negotiate pay and working conditions with management, but their pay checks are coming from the management. Tell me how that makes sense.
David Thul: I believe that’s fairly common if not general practice in industry for union shop stewards as well. It’s one of the many little “bennies” unions negotiate during labor negotiations.