VA Employee Fairness Act Rewrites VHA Labor Rules: Key Bargaining Subsections Removed

The "VA Employee Fairness Act of 2025" is taking a scalpel to the rules governing collective bargaining for employees at the Veterans Health Administration (VHA). This isn't about creating new labor rights from scratch; it’s about cleaning up and restructuring the existing rulebook, specifically Section 7422 of title 38 in the U.S. Code.

The bill’s main action, detailed in Section 2, is the removal of three specific subsections—(b), (c), and (d)—from the VHA's collective bargaining statutes. If you’re a VHA nurse, doctor, or physical therapist, these subsections previously laid out some of the specific limitations or processes for how your union could negotiate with management. After removing these, the bill simply takes the remaining subsection (e) and renames it as the new subsection (b).

The Fine Print: What the Changes Mean

Think of this like deleting three chapters from a legal textbook and then renumbering the final chapter. Because the bill doesn't replace the content of the deleted sections, the practical effect hinges entirely on what those specific subsections previously contained. For VHA employees, particularly those represented by a union, this change will likely streamline or simplify the framework for their negotiations, potentially removing statutory hurdles or restrictions that currently exist.

Crucially, the legislation takes care to preserve the Secretary of Veterans Affairs’ existing powers. It explicitly states that this update to collective bargaining rules does not affect the Secretary’s authority to hand out incentive pay or use expedited hiring processes under section 706 of title 38. This is the government’s way of saying, “We’re changing the labor negotiation rules, but we aren’t touching the tools management uses to recruit and reward staff quickly.”

Impact on VHA Workers and Operations

For the thousands of busy people working at the VHA—from the front desk staff to the surgical teams—this bill is a procedural shift that moves the goalposts for union negotiations. If the deleted subsections contained restrictions that unions found burdensome, their removal could lead to more straightforward or favorable collective bargaining agreements in the future. For example, if a deleted rule limited the scope of issues a union could negotiate over, that scope might now be wider.

On the management side, keeping the authority for incentive pay and fast hiring means the VHA can still compete for talent, especially in high-demand fields. This ensures that the VHA’s ability to staff hospitals and clinics quickly—a major operational concern—remains intact, separate from the evolving labor negotiation landscape. In short, this bill is a behind-the-scenes adjustment to the VHA’s labor relations foundation, designed to update the rules of engagement without disrupting the ability to hire or reward critical staff.