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Lawsuit Filed Against the VA Over “Official Time” Dispute


Recently, the American Federation of Government Employees, the National Federation of Federal Employees, and the National Association of Government Employees filed a lawsuit against the Department of Veterans Affairs (“VA”) after the VA made a determination that Title 38 VA employees would no longer be able to perform any union representational activities while on “official time”.  Broadly speaking, official time is time granted by a governmental agency to allow an employee to perform representational functions on behalf of a union without requiring the employee to use personal leave or incurring a loss of pay while that employee would otherwise be in the course of their ordinary work.

In this instance, the unions claim that the VA has usurped its authority by unilaterally withdrawing official time from these Title 38 employees. According to the lawsuit, several collective bargaining agreements were entered into between the unions and VA and remained in effect at all relevant times.  That agreement set forth which employees would be allowed to utilize official time.  However, in November of 2018, it was alleged that the Acting Assistant Secretary for Human Resources and Administration of the VA improperly issued an Official Time Determination which prohibited these Title 38 employees from using official time (as noted, this is what this lawsuit turns on), contrary to what the collective bargaining agreements stated.

The lawsuit asks that the Official Time Determination be set aside, held to be unlawful and in violation of the Administrative Procedures Act, and return these employees back to the status quo.


A copy of the lawsuit can be found here:  https://www.afge.org/globalassets/documents/generalreports/2018/title-38-official-time-11-15-18.pdf

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