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During the House and Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committees joint hearing with the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), Congressman Jodey Arrington (TX-19) addressed the broken culture at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and discussed how legislation he introduced in the House, the Veterans, Employees and Taxpayers (VET) Protection Act, would better serve our nation’s veterans.

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“As a new member [of Congress], I came to Washington, D.C. not just to change the course of this country for the good people that I represent in West Texas, but the culture of this country and the culture of Washington. It’s broken. You know it. We all know it,” Arrington said in his remarks. “It seems like every issue, whether it’s the appeals process, or healthcare related, or home modification for our disabled veterans - you name it - at the heart of the issue is a broken culture, a failed system, a big bureaucracy that is failing our veterans - that’s the heart of this.” “Now, we’ve done some good things to empower VA leadership to change that culture for you guys. But let me tell you, the biggest disappointment since I’ve been on this committee is that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported, in my first hearing, that there are hundreds of VA employees who spend 100% of their time on union activity.” Union activity is also known as “official time.” The law stipulates that official time is to be used for “representational work” that is “reasonable, necessary, and in the public’s interest.” “Now there ain’t anybody in West Texas that I’ve talked to, veteran or taxpayer, that believes that someone spending 100% of their time on anything other than the job that they were hired to do - to serve the veterans - is reasonable, necessary, and in the best interest of the public,” Arrington said. “I have one word for it – outrageous.” BACKGROUND Under VA’s current union agreements, union members can use “official time” to conduct union business such as working on employee grievances, addressing bargaining issues and some lobbying efforts while being paid by VA. A Government Accountability Office report found that more than 340 VA employees, including numerous high-level health care providers, spend 100% of their time working on union duties instead of the work VA hired them to do. In addition, VA does not have a standardized system to track how much time its employees spend doing union work. For more information, see Congressman Arrington’s op-ed in the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal.

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