Va Employee Fairness Act of 2021
Floor Speech
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Mr. TAKANO. Madam Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 1518, I call up the bill (H.R. 1948) to amend title 38, United States Code, to modify authorities relating to the collective bargaining of employees in the Veterans Health Administration, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
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Mr. TAKANO. 1948, as amended.
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Mr. TAKANO. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Madam Speaker, I rise in support of my bill, H.R. 1948, as amended, the bipartisan VA Employee Fairness Act. This legislation ensures important collective bargaining rights for all frontline healthcare workers who care for our veterans.
As chairman of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, I have made veterans' healthcare one of my top priorities. I know my colleagues on both sides of the aisle strongly support our veterans and the benefits they earn.
This bill presents an opportunity to match words with action. The VA Employee Fairness Act will ensure critical protections for the healthcare workers serving our veterans.
As a Nation, we must invest in these frontline workers at VA hospitals. Our veterans need modern, well-designed hospital and clinical buildings equipped with the latest, most advanced medical devices and equipment and stocked with adequate medical supplies.
However, all this means little without a well-trained workforce ready to serve our veterans. That is why collective bargaining is vital.
Frontline healthcare workers deserve the right to organize themselves. They deserve to have a voice. VA nurses or technicians should be able to point out wrongdoing without fear of losing their job or other forms of retaliation.
All of this sounds like common sense, and it is, and this is what collective bargaining is all about.
My bill will bring parity to the Federal workforce by ensuring full collective bargaining rights for all VA employees.
Under current law, almost all Federal employees have basic worker protections through collective bargaining. They can become members of a labor union. They have a way to raise grievances and seek redress. They are allowed to have the support of union representatives. This has long been part of the fabric of the Federal workforce.
But there is one glaring exception. Many of the frontline healthcare workers within VA hospitals and clinics are barred from collective bargaining.
Title 38 healthcare professionals, such as registered nurses, physicians, dentists, and physician assistants, do not have the same rights as the psychologists, social workers, pharmacists, and licensed practical nurses who work side by side with them.
I will note that the same professionals at Department of Defense hospitals have collective bargaining rights. You heard that right. A registered nurse has collective bargaining rights at DOD but not a registered nurse at VA. This is the kind of legal contortion that should be fixed.
This probably sounds arbitrary, and it is. A list was written up by Congress years ago and depending on your specialty of nursing care or other occupation, someone taking care of veterans is either able to have full rights as an employee or not, and this only happens at VA healthcare facilities.
The bill is cosponsored by 218 of our congressional colleagues, and it has the support from those who represent frontline VA healthcare workers, including the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, National Nurses United, National Federation of Federal Employees, National Association of Government Employees, Service Employees International Union, the National Veterans Affairs Council, and a dozen other national labor unions. Further, this bill has the endorsement of Vietnam Veterans of America and The American Legion.
I wish to point out what VA said in its testimony when my committee held a legislative hearing on it last year. ``Secretary McDonough has stated publicly and to our workforce that a unionized workforce is a strong workforce. Collective bargaining is a powerful means for a strong workforce which is VA's number one asset as we work toward increasing access and outcomes for veterans, their families, caregivers, and survivors. VA supports organized labor and values in the collective bargaining process with our labor partners.''
I agree. This is about building and maintaining a strong workforce, a workforce dedicated to serving our veterans. I will share a real-world example of the importance of collective bargaining at VA.
In an issue that rose to U.S. District Court, the Central Texas VA Healthcare System failed to pay nurse practitioners and physician assistants overtime. When the healthcare workers demanded what was due to them, VA resisted.
The case was arbitrated in favor of the employees, but VA then used its authority under title 38 to argue that the grievance should not be addressed.
There is nothing fair about that.
This outdated provision in Federal law has become an excuse for VA to deny workers the benefits they have rightfully earned. Stories like these hardly represent an incentive for nurses to remain in the Department.
H.R. 1948, as amended, will ensure that VA employees have the ability to seek redress when VA does not follow its own rules and policies.
Some of my colleagues will argue that this means labor unions will start making veteran healthcare decisions, but this is, quite simply, not the case. Under Federal law, VA healthcare workers do not have this power. No Federal healthcare worker with collective bargaining rights has this power. Nor do their labor unions.
In fact, the current law stipulates that Federal employees with collective bargaining rights are limited in what they can bargain for.
Unlike in the private sector, Federal workers who have collective bargaining rights cannot strike, and they cannot bargain over their level of pay. Pay levels are set by the civil service pay grades each year and are not subject to collective bargaining.
Title 38 employees should have the same rights as those governed by title 5. Title 38 employees should have the same rights as their colleagues with whom they work side by side serving our veterans. H.R. 1948, as amended, is all about fairness for VA's frontline workers.
VA is going to be ramping up hiring over the next 5 years as it welcomes 3.5 million more veterans into the VA healthcare system after the passage of the Honoring our PACT Act. In order to attract the most qualified workforce to serve our veterans, we need to ensure that VA is a great place to work.
The employees who are on the front lines of our Nation's veterans' healthcare deserve and need basic worker protections. A VA nurse needs to be able to ask that their pay errors will be resolved. A doctor must feel empowered to raise medical safety concerns without fear of reprisal or retaliation. Without these protections, VA will continue to struggle to recruit and retain the best and brightest medical professionals that our country has to offer, and I fear that veterans' health and well-being will suffer as a result.
This is about fairness, and I am pleased that the administration agrees and has issued a statement in support of this legislation.
Madam Speaker, I include in the Record the Statement of Administration Policy. Statement of Administration Policy H.R. 1948--VA Employee Fairness Act of 2022--Rep. Takano, D-CA, and 218 cosponsors
The Administration supports House passage of H.R. 1948, the VA Employee Fairness, Act of 2022, to expand collective bargaining opportunities for covered Federal employees.
The Biden-Harris Administration supports worker organizing and empowerment as critical tools to grow the middle class and build an inclusive economy. The Federal government, consistent with its obligations to serve the public, can be a model employer in this regard.
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is responsible for the delivery of safe, effective, and timely patient care for our veterans, and dedicated VA employees work tirelessly to support our veterans' health needs, including in combating COVID-19.
The Administration is committed to continuing to work with Congress to support hard-working employees while protecting veterans' access to the care and services that they have earned through service to the Nation.
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Mr. TAKANO. Madam Speaker, in closing, I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 1948, as amended, the VA Employee Fairness Act. It represents the right thing to do for those who care about our Nation's veterans. I wholeheartedly support this bill, and I urge my colleagues to vote for its passage.
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Mr. TAKANO. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Before I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Green), I would like to rebut some of the points that the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Bost), my good friend, has made.
I believe that the gentleman from Illinois is misreading the law. H.R. 1948 will not allow the types of impacts that he has described. H.R. 1948 amends section 7422 of title 38. This is true. However, it is title 5 statutes overall that define the scope of collective bargaining for Federal workers.
Most importantly, title 5 states that collective bargaining does not include policies, practices, and matters ``to the extent that such matters are specifically provided by Federal statute.''
There are many laws which define the scope of collective bargaining. For example, if H.R. 1948 were enacted, title 38 section 7464 of the United States Code is still on the books. This law controls disciplinary appeals boards. I remind my colleagues that H.R. 1948 would only allow unions to grieve items under its contract with the department, and if it is not in the contract, a grievance cannot occur.
Furthermore, my colleague from Illinois (Mr. Bost) has made the assertion that doctors and nurses don't have collective bargaining rights outside of VA, or he pointed out a specific example of the Mayo Clinic. There are many, many wonderful, great, effective medical organizations that do have employee unions as part of their workforce, and so what he is stating is simply not true.
Hundreds of thousands of registered nurses and advanced practice registered nurses, including nurse practitioners, are represented by labor unions and have full collective bargaining rights. Full collective bargaining rights. We are not talking about full collective bargaining rights in this particular instance of H.R. 1948.
There are whole unions for physicians and dentists that have existed for more than 50 years, and this includes many hospitals in New York and California. At UC San Francisco, over 5,000 nurses are represented by National Nurses United, and doctors are represented by Committee of Interns and Residents, which is part of SEIU.
Furthermore, DOD healthcare clinicians have collective bargaining rights, including nurses and physicians.
Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Green), my good friend and cosponsor of H.R. 1948, a member of the Committee on Financial Services, chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. He also serves on the Homeland Security Committee.
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Mr. TAKANO. Madam Speaker, I would remind my colleague from the State of Illinois that this bill more than adequately went through regular order.
We held a legislative hearing in April of 2021. The bill has garnered 218 cosponsors of our colleagues, each of whom has presumably reviewed the bill before they joined as cosponsors. We put the bill through a regular markup, and I have been in regular consultation with the Secretary of the VA about this bill. And most recently, the White House has issued a Statement of Administration Policy in support of the bill.
So to say that this bill is being rammed through at the 11th hour is patently untrue and not accurate.
Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Higgins), my good friend and cosponsor of this bill. He serves on the Budget Committee and is a member of the House Committee on Ways and Means.
Mr. HIGGINS of New York. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of the VA Employee Fairness Act. We rely on the work of dedicated healthcare professionals to care for our veterans who risk their lives for our country. Yet, our laws do not provide an adequate voice for those workers to ensure care is of the highest quality.
The COVID-19 pandemic showed us why that voice is necessary.
This bill changes that by granting all VA healthcare providers the same collective bargaining rights. It means that healthcare workers can have a greater say in protecting patients, ensuring clinical competence, and setting wages and benefits.
It would provide rights for over 100,000 VA doctors, nurses, dentists, and chiropractors, including more than 350 nurses at the Buffalo VA Medical Center.
I am proud to be one of 218 cosponsors of this bill on the floor today, and I urge my colleagues to please support it.
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Mr. TAKANO. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time to close.
Madam Speaker, I just remind the gentleman from Illinois that I did cite an egregious example of the VA ignoring the conclusions of an arbitrator in a patently unfair way.
Giving our title 38 employees the right to organize and the right to be represented by unions in such cases where a very legitimate grievance arises, I think is a basic principle of fairness, in fairness.
Let us think about what our veterans sacrificed. Let us think about what they put the uniform of their country on to fight for. They fought for our freedoms. They fought for our rights. They fought for basic fairness.
I have often said on this floor, that supporting our veterans is neither about being red or blue, but red, white, and blue. And I say to you that it is red, white, and blue to support the very principles that our veterans fought for. They fought for fairness. They fought for dignity. If you look at authoritarian countries around the world, they not only close the churches down, they not only close civil society down, but they close down real, independent unions, as well.
So if we are faithful to the principles of our Republic, we will stand up not only for religious institutions, not only for civil society, not only for your right and my right to say what is on our mind, but we will also fight for the right and defend the right of employees to organize and to unionize.
In this case, it is a very limited circumscribed form of collective bargaining, far more circumscribed than the very union that my colleague, who is a firefighter, I am willing to bet that his union had a far more robust ability to exercise collective bargaining than the very employees that we are trying to empower today.
Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 1948, and I stand squarely behind it.
Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 1948, the VA Employee Fairness Act of 2021. Throughout my career in Congress, I have always supported our veterans as well as those at the VA who serve, assist, and treat our veterans, especially those who have health care needs, so that they can optimally enjoy their post-service life.
Thus, I strongly support the VA Employee Fairness Act, which would repeal provisions that exclude matters concerning professional conduct or competence, peer review, or adjustment of employee compensation from the applicability of collective bargaining rights for Veterans Health Administration employees.
Specifically, H.R. 1948 restores full collective bargaining rights to VA healthcare professionals including nurses, physicians, dentists, and physician assistants.
This long overdue legislation grants millions of VA hospital employees the same collective bargaining rights that are already afforded to all other federal healthcare workers.
The ability to negotiate better working conditions and better wages is a fundamental right to all Americans in the workforce.
When this bill passes, it will give a voice to the nurses and doctors who work long and treacherous hours to treat and care for our veterans when they return home from service.
Millions of veterans will live the rest of their lives with disabilities due to service-incurred injuries and physical impairments that resulted after they made the decision to protect our nation and safeguard our freedom.
Our courageous service members have pledged that, on the battlefield, they will leave no soldier behind. In carrying out this sacred obligation, we must not forget those who treat them when they return from service.
I urge all of my colleagues to vote in favor of H.R. 1948, and resolve together that just as we will always support our veterans, so too, we must and will always support those who compassionately treat, serve, and restore them so that they can rejoin civilian life as fully as possible.
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