October,2009

After World War 11, Congress created the Title 38 personnel system to hire medical

professionals to treat the returning soldiers. In 1978, Congress passed the Civil Service

Reform Act (CSRS) identifying the VA medical professionals covered by this reform act.

For several years following the enactment of the CSRS, it was the shared belief of the VA,

unions and FLRA that the VA had a duty to bargain with the unions on the conditions of

employment for the VA medical professionals. In 1991, due to a court ruling,Congress

enacted Section 7422 to provide the VA medical professionals with essentially the same

Title 5 labor relations rights held by other federal employees. Under the 38 U.S.C,section

7422, covered VA medical employees such as the Registered nurses,doctors,anethetists,

dentists and etc. can negotiate,file grievances and arbitrate disputes over working conditions

excepts "any matter or question concerning or arising out of the following:

a) Professional competency or conduct ( direct patient care or clinical competency)

b) Peer review

c) establishment,determination or adjustment of employee compensation

The legislative history made it clear that Congress viewed " Direct patient care" as medical

procedures not issues that affect the veterans indirectly such as implementation of CWS,

pay scale, unsafe patient to nurse ratio and many other issues that is being viewed by the

VA medical professionals as unfair treatment. VA management has interpreted these

exceptions very broadly and refuse to bargain anything related to working conditions.

In the last few years, bargaining rights of the Title 38 employees basically disappeared

due to non support of the reigning administration.

In 2009, there has been an increase interest from the new VA Secretary to get the VA

management and the unions to start talking and clarifying the true intent of the Congress

when this law was enacted. Through Labor National Partnership with VACO, a Work Group

was formed to work collaborately and formulate recommendations to the Secretary of

Veterans Affairs that will improve knowledge, understanding, and consistent use of 38

U.S.C section7422. NAGE believes that with the support of Secretary Shinseki, VA management

is willing to work with its labor partners to eliminate even the appearance of bias or

inappropriate use of the 38 U.S.C.& 7422 exclusions.

The work group is schedule to meet this month and NAGE is being represented by Jim

Barton, Vice-President of Local R3-19.

Evelyn