In an effort to help those veterans who may have been waiting years for their VA benefits, many of those in Congress support recent legislation to fire the so called “bad apples “at the Department of Veterans Affairs. Even though those supporting this legislation may have the best of intentions, the mass firing of VA employees may do more harm than good to improve the care provided to veterans.
Over the last few years, it has become abundantly clear that our government needs to deal more effectively with employees of the VA who are failing at their jobs or violating the best interest of their clients. But even with an expedited firing of many federal employees, a third of which are veterans themselves, the fundamental problem remains; the VA sorely needs management reforms.
The first steps of this legislation were taken by Congress in recent years in response to the scandal that involved false wait times for veterans in need of health care services. In 2015, the VA secretary was given authority to quickly fire senior executives and at the same time create shortened processes for future employee appeals of their cases. Early studies of these tactics showed that some of the best candidates for promotion to executive positions are actually bypassing the opportunity for promotion due to this law.
How Does Firing VA Employees Effect VA Disability Legislation?
The measures, (S 1082), (S 1117), and (HR 1994) allow for the ejection of VA employees for almost any reason and at the same time deny the employee the right to fair notice and a suitable period of time in which to defend themselves. Some fear that this lack of employee rights smacks of a bygone era in history when civil servants could easily be fired by political appointees at will based on political persuasion.
This legislation may also have detrimental effects on the Department of Veterans Affairs itself. Though many of the problem employees will be gone, the cutting of employee rights may leave the VA without new infusions of top management talent who may shy away from the new VA practice.
It may also create an unfairly stacked deck against all employees, whether they are guilty of violating interests or not. The current trend of VA whistle blowing, by those who wish to expose mistreatment of claims in support of our veterans, may also come to a swift halt.
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The worst part of this entire initiative is that VA management still shows no sign of improvement. There must be more constructive ways to create change at the VA instead of arbitrarily firing VA employees and career managers. With this level of unrest in the VA system it is always best to have the best veteran’s disability attorney at your side.
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