Saving a Member's Career: A Proposed Removal, Reversed
A VBA employee was facing removal after a Performance Improvement Plan. He was outside our bargaining unit, and Local 17 represented him anyway. He still has his job, and we are not finished.
A VBA employee was facing removal from federal service. He is still employed today.
Welcome to the first edition of Local 17 in Action, a new Monday feature covering news that affects VA employees and real examples of how Local 17 stewards protect members across VA Central Office. Not every victory can be shared. Some cases stay private at the member’s request, and others are still in progress. But we hope these stories give you a clearer picture of the work your union performs every day on behalf of our members.
This week’s case is a good place to begin, because it shows both what representation can accomplish and why we do not stop once the outcome is merely acceptable.
A proposed removal, following a PIP
The member works for the Veterans Benefits Administration. After being placed on a Performance Improvement Plan, he received a proposed removal, the agency’s formal notice that it intended to fire him.
For most federal employees, that notice is the most serious piece of paper they will ever receive at work. It arrives with a deadline, it is written in the agency’s language and framed around the agency’s evidence, and it lands on someone who is usually least equipped to answer it in the moment. Responding to it alone is a difficult thing to do well.
Why we took a case outside our bargaining unit
Here is the part worth pausing on: this employee was not in Local 17’s bargaining unit.
A local’s obligations run to the employees it represents. This member was not one of them, and Local 17 was under no duty to take his case. We took it anyway, because he was a dues-paying member of AFGE.
That is not a small distinction, and it is worth being direct about what it means. Membership is not a line item on a pay statement. In this case it was the reason a person facing the end of his federal career had a union in the room at all.
What representation actually looked like
Local 17 did two things, and both mattered.
First, we prepared and submitted a written response to the proposal, a detailed rebuttal of the agency’s account of his performance, on the record, before any decision was made. Second, we met directly with the deciding official to advocate on the member’s behalf. That meeting is a right many employees do not realize they have, and one that is far more effective when someone experienced uses it.
The written reply and the oral reply are the two moments where a proposed action can still be changed. After a decision issues, the conversation shifts from persuasion to appeal, and the ground is much harder.
The outcome, and what is still wrong with it
The removal did not happen. The member kept his job, and he was reassigned away from the supervisor whose actions had led to the proposed removal in the first place.
The deciding official did reduce him one grade.
Preserving a member’s career against a proposed removal is a real accomplishment, and many advocates would have closed the file there and called it a win. We are not closing it.
Why we are continuing to MSPB
Local 17 is pursuing this case before the Merit Systems Protection Board.
Our position is straightforward. We believe this employee’s performance was strong. We believe the agency’s actions were unjustified. And we do not believe that avoiding termination is the same thing as being treated lawfully. A grade reduction carries a permanent cut in pay and a mark on a career that follows a person for as long as they stay in federal service.
What we are asking for is what he should have had all along: his grade restored, his pay made whole, and the agency held accountable for how this was handled.
That is what “Local 17 in Action” is meant to describe. Not just the cases that end cleanly, but the ones we keep pushing after the immediate emergency has passed.
If you are dealing with a PIP, a proposed disciplinary action, or a supervisor whose expectations keep shifting, contact us. That is what we are here for.
Not yet a member?
If you are not yet an AFGE member, joining takes a few minutes. You can join through our site or complete the membership form directly at joinafge.org.
If you work at VA Central Office, select L 0017 (VA Central Office). If you are represented by a different AFGE local, select your own local number.
Thank you for your continued support of AFGE.
In solidarity,
Douglas E. Massey, Esq. President, AFGE Local 17, AFL-CIO
Related reading: For other cases where the Department’s handling of discipline did not survive scrutiny, see Bargaining Unit Employee Reinstated Because VA Management Violated the Employee’s Due Process Rights and our Arbitration Victory: 10 Critical Takeaways. On performance standards specifically, see Proposed Changes to Performance Standards: A Threat to Workforce Morale.