Judge orders VA to reinstate contract with employee union

A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction Friday that temporarily reinstates a collective bargaining agreement between the Department of Veterans Affairs and its largest employee union.

Rhode Island U.S. District Court Judge Melissa DuBose ruled in favor of the American Federation of Government Employees National Veterans Affairs Council, ordering the VA to recognize the bargaining contract that represents roughly 300,000 VA employees.

In her decision, DuBose noted that an executive order issued in March, 2025 by President Donald Trump allowed federal agencies that are involved in national security to terminate union contracts, including the VA, which may provide medical care to the general public during national health crises.

But the VA did not cite national security concerns in ending the AFGE contract, DuBose said.

Instead, the VA cited cost and an inability to terminate employees for performance issues or bad conduct as reasons for terminating AFGE’s agreement.

“Other than the one, vague, post hoc statement about national security that appears in [a] declaration, there is zero indication from the [VA] that the termination decision would have been made or implemented without the retaliatory motive,” DuBose wrote.

She also said some unions clearly were favored over others in the VA’s decision process since the department did not terminate all agreements, and the termination did not follow the executive order, which allowed decisions on an “agency or subdivision basis and not union by union.”

The VA ended most of its collective bargaining contracts with federal unions last August, affecting thousands of employees represented by AFGE, the AFL-CIO, the National Association of Government Employees, the National Federation of Federal Employees, the National Nurses Organizing Committee/National Nurses United and the Service Employees International Union.

VA officials said the move would make it easier to “promote high-performing employees” and “hold poor performers accountable.”

“Too often, unions that represent VA employees fight against the best interests of veterans while protecting and rewarding bad workers,” VA Secretary Doug Collins said at the time. “We’re making sure VA resources and employees are singularly focused on the job we were sent here to do: providing top-notch care and service to those who wore the uniform.”

AFGE filed a lawsuit in November over the termination, which included the VA stopping the withholding of union dues from employees’ paychecks.

In their suit, AFGE officials said the move was harming employees and the union, with employees seeing a decline in benefits, such as a decrease in parental leave from 16 weeks to 12 weeks, and loss of safeguards, while the union has been losing members.

AFGE National President Everett Kelley said Friday that DuBose’ ruling holds the VA accountable. He added that AFGE will monitor the VA to make sure it complies with the decision.

“Secretary Collins singled out AFGE and our members for retaliation because we refused to stay silent about cuts and changes at the VA that would harm veterans. His decision to exempt other unions from the President’s executive order and then terminate AFGE/NVAC’s collective bargaining agreement made the retaliation impossible to deny,” Kelley said in a statement.

It’s not clear how long the reinstatement will last. The VA did not respond by publication to a request for comment.

But the department is likely to appeal the decision, and the outcome is uncertain. In a separate lawsuit filed by AFGE on behalf of all government employees, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last month that the administration’s termination of collective bargaining agreements was not retaliatory, and it overturned a preliminary injunction put in place by a different federal judge.

Before the start of the second Trump administration, the VA had about 450,000 employees, nearly 80% of whom were represented by a union.

VA employee unions that were allowed to keep operating following the executive order included those representing 4,000 VA police officers, firefighters and security guards.