The United States Department of Veterans Affairs announced this week that most of its union contracts will be terminated.
The VA says this will save the department millions of dollars and about 750,000 hours on union activities, but the American Federation of Government Employees says this is bad idea.
"These last couple of days have been, really difficult," said Troy Stormoen, Executive Vice President, AFGE Local 2152. "Essentially on Thursday, we learned that the Secretary of the VA had canceled our collective bargaining agreement, that had been recently resubmitted in 2023."
This was the letter the workers received to let them know the contracts were done.
This comes after President Donald Trump signed an executive order back in March.
The largest VA union is the AFGE. They have an office located near the VA Hospital in Reno, and they represent about 2,300 employees here in the area.
The VA shared in a release that the end of these bargaining agreements will give more time and space for regular VA operations.
Just to clarify, most folks still have a job - they just don't have union protections.
One worker said they feel their rights are gone without union representation.
"Now we have additional pressure on those employees, and now they're going to feel less secure because they've lost the right to have the protections that we agreed upon—with the agency, with the VA—to allow them to, you know, feel comfortable with how they're treated at work," Stormoen said. "To know what their rights are."Â
The Sierra Nevada VA sent out emails to employees today letting them know their agreements will be changing over the course of the coming days and weeks.
The letter claims this will come to a benefit for employees by being able to hire more people, reward good performance, and hold workers more accountable, but the union disagrees.
"So, we find this to be something that's going to damage the VA, damage its ability to take care of veterans," Stormoen said. "And of course, we would we would, urge the secretary to reconsider and withdraw and reinstate the collective bargaining agreement for our employees in Reno."
The national AFGE says they are looking into options to challenge the decision and restore union rights.
