You keep using that word, punishment. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Two stories from the Department of Veterans’ Affairs which illustrates what they think is punishment. First up – a VA employee in Puerto Rico, Elizabeth Rivera Rivera, who is looking at charges of armed robbery. When she was arrested, the VA fired her, but she got a union representative to stick up for her, according to the Daily Caller.
Employees said the union demanded her job back and pointed out that Tito Santiago Martinez, the management-side labor relations specialist in Puerto Rico, who is in charge of dealing with the union and employee discipline, is a convicted sex offender. Martinez reportedly disclosed his conviction to the hospital and VA hired him anyway, reasoning that “there’s no children in [the hospital], so they figure I could not harm anyone here.”
The union’s position — that another employee committed a crime and got away with it, so this one should, too — has been upheld by the highest civil service rules arbiters, and has created a vicious Catch-22 where the department’s prior indefensible inaction against bad employees has handcuffed it from taking action now against other scofflaws.
So, now Rivera Rivera is going to work with a GPS anklet and she works at the security department monitoring CTV screens. Of course, the VA is just taking it’s cues from the Merit Systems Promotion Board which determined last month that the VA can’t inconsistently punish employees. That case involved Kimberly Graves and Diana Rubens who abused the VA’s relocation pay system. That brings us to our second story. It seems that the VA is punishing acting VBA chief Danny Pummill who approved Graves’ and Rubens’ relocation pay. He’s taking a 15-day suspension for that, according to US News;
Pummill was the VBA’s deputy chief when Rubens and Graves implemented the job relocations, which put both of them closer to their families. Pummill replaced former VBA chief Allison Hickey, who retired as allegations against Rubens and Graves were made public.
Rubens earns $181,497 as director of the VBA’s Philadelphia regional office, while Graves receives $173,949 as head of the St. Paul, Minnesota, benefits office.
Graves and Rubens were reprimanded Tuesday and had their pay cut by 10 percent. The two women were reinstated to their positions last month after administrative judges overturned their demotions.
[…]
Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, called the actions “a weak slap on the wrist.”
Accountability at the VA “is almost non-existent,” Miller said. “One thing is clear: this dysfunctional status quo will never change until we eliminate arcane civil service rules that put the job security of VA bureaucrats ahead of the veterans they are charged with serving.”
Of course, Pummill can contest the suspension, he probably will, and it will probably be stored, because some animals are more equal that others.
Category: Veterans' Affairs Department
She needs to be buried up to her neck. . . . .head first.
Meanwhile it’s been over three months and I have yet to get a consult that my PCP said she would put in for me. Wonderful….. ?
Just when you think you can read anything else indicating the depths of our government’s abject fucking stupidity when it comes to personnel practices….
So we a SMA who determined below the calf and elbow tattoos were too disgusting to allow those who had them to serve in combat with long shirts and long pants, but the people charged with treating those who did get wounded in combat can come from the ranks of armed robbers and pedophiles…one might wonder just how the inmates got control over the asylum.
Yeah, nothing to see here folks move along…
Until ALL of this crap is sent in total to members of congress that ARE conscientious ….nothing will change, fortunately, we in Arizona have a representative that DOES LISTEN and DOES ACT….Paul Gosar…do some research, you are bound to have at least one good one in your state!
No surprise here.
The American Media focuses entirely on wait times and health care.
They missed the VBA and their nefarious actions entirely.
They, the VBA, need overhauling as well. Hickey was a joke and so is this guy. It is an organization that is WAY overstaffed at higher levels.
If they don’t get the union out of the mix, they will never get rid of these parasites.
A convicted sex offender in a hospital? ANY hospital? W. T. F.
My thoughts exactly, Ex-PH2…
There are children in the VA hospital although this is not a children’s hospital. Children are I the hospital almost everyday!
Paging “JACK SHIT”, PAGING MR JACK SHIT….
White courtesy telephone.
He’s kinda busy, can I help you?
I’m his second cousin twice removed. May I help?
He is trying to figure out if anyone at the VA knows him, so he may be gone for a while.
What do you need?
I don’t think we need a priest, but thanks for answering, Holy.
I’m afraid the outcome of this case was determined by me.
Almost nobody in Senior Management of the VA knows me, especially the political appointees.
I must confess, I was the one who suggested to the civil service arbiter that this dumbass not be fired.
We are missing the big one…”WEIRD SHYT”!!
The union’s position — that another employee committed a crime and got away with it, so this one should, too — has been upheld by the highest civil service rules arbiters, and has created a vicious Catch-22 where the department’s prior indefensible inaction against bad employees has handcuffed it from taking action now against other scofflaws.
Exactly the problem with so many calls for “fairness” and “consistency.”
Of course, if you read the article it say Martinez disclosed his crime to the hospital but they hired him anyway, implying he had done the crime and had at least started on whatever penalty was assessed. In Rivera’s case she just committed her crime as an employee – totally different situation. Or is that depth of analysis beyond the VA….wait, why do I even ask that…
Good point. Though even if it had been the same, it’s a terrible idea to say one bad decision requires the same bad decision again, to make it “fair.”
Saying, “But, MOM, everybody’s doing it,” didn’t work when I was a kid, either.
Let’s not try to bash the union’s here. Private sector unions do not sell job security, we have to sell ourselves on our work ethic and educational background. Being from Az, which I believe was the first of the right to work States, and being retired IBEW, the main difference between myself and a non-union electrician is that when I retire I get a defined benefit pension, the non-union sector does not get one. Signatory contractors are signatory for a reason. Believe me an armed robber or a sex offender would not last at any of the companies I worked for.
Now is this a problem that is widespread throughout the entire government or is it only at the va?
I always thought that an arrest record barred you from government employment. I also thought that after a probationary period that it was impossible to be fired from civil service positions.
Now that I am retired, I volunteer at the va.
Public sector unions are a different animal Joseph…your private sector companies even with union help still had to compete for work. Anyone who doesn’t understand that simple fact wouldn’t understand the difference between your experience and this story.
There is no competition for production from a union representing the VA employees which is why this story is so outrageous. There is no company competing to serve veterans with the VA, consequently it’s a cesspool with clearly limited repercussions. Any company that hired you as a union employee still had to turn a profit or it wouldn’t last long and you’d be out of work regardless of whether or not you had union representation. The VA will never turn a profit that’s not it’s function, once again creating that deadwood forever mentality that these cases seem to represent.
I see your Animal Farm reference and raise you:
Four appendages good…any less is bad and we don’t give a fuck.
(Four legs good…two legs bad)
Remember kids, this is where Bernie the Commie wanted to pump in a few dozen billion bucks into, ostensibly to “help” veterans.
This is also the result if the government takes over your health care. All in favor, say, “Aye!”
I thought it was “Ayers!”
and after 26 years of service in the infantry and 87 parachute jumps, the VA says my chronic back and knee pain is “not service connected”.
Thanks pal. Looks like I need to get hired at the VA to get job security.
The only defense of their decision would be that you had no medical documents showing that you had gone on sick call or gotten a profile for your back and/or knees.
But we are smarter than to believe that, and I would recommend an appeal with some of your personal copies of your medical records showing that you had gone to sick call for back and or knee pain.
Extending the same thought process, if former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton walks in charges of mishandling classified information, the government will never have another conviction on the unintentional or intentional mishandling of classified information.
And if you want more government inaction, talk to any HR administrator working at Social Security. You would think that possessing and distributing child poem would get you fired, but apparently not.
All this leads to the simple conclusion that the only way to fix it is to destroy it. Start all over.
No unions. Current employees are welcome to apply with the new agency, but will need to seriously prove their competency, and history of responsible prior behavior. In other words – it would be nearly impossible for a previous union member employee to be hired.
There should be other criteria for the new agency, but this single thing would make a HUGE difference.
The VA is truly “bizarro world” come to life…or a alternate effing universe.