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Lawmakers and union reps warn VA staffing losses, telework changes and bargaining restrictions threaten care
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Summary
Members of the House Veterans' Affairs subcommittee and an AFGE representative described large net losses of VA staff, examples of local morale and recruitment problems, and concerns that an administration executive order and telework policy changes have worsened retention.
Lawmakers and a union witness told a House Veterans' Affairs subcommittee in July 2025 that steep staffing losses, restrictions on telework and limits on collective bargaining have undermined the VA's ability to recruit and retain mission-critical staff.
"Earlier this month, Secretary Collins celebrated the VA will lose nearly 30,000 employees by the end of the fiscal year. I find that despicable," Ranking Member Ramirez said in opening remarks, adding that "Every VA employee is mission critical." Ramirez cited data from the VA workforce dashboard and detailed net losses in several veteran-facing occupations during the current fiscal year.
Dr. Sheila Elliott, a pharmacist at the Hampton VA Medical Center and president of American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Local 2328, told the subcommittee that Hampton faces severe vacancies. "At our facility, we have a 43% ... out of a 100 positions, 43 of them are vacant," she said, describing a case where "we are in the process now of losing a psychologist ... [who] lived far away and could not come to Hampton with no relocation bonus offered." Elliott said recruitment often begins only after staff depart, shifting patient loads and causing appointments to be rescheduled.
Union witnesses and some members attributed part of the recruitment and retention problem to policy changes that affect workplace flexibility and bargaining rights. Dr. Elliott told the panel that "in March, President Trump signed an executive order eliminating the collective bargaining rights of 1,500,000 federal employees at agencies, including VA," and that the rollback of telework had hurt morale and retention for clinicians who used telemedicine. "Most telework has been rescinded by this administration," she said, adding the requirement that clinicians report to facilities and work in crowded spaces has "harmed morale and retention of mission critical and hard to recruit clinicians at the VA."
Members on both sides of the aisle raised concerns about whether targeted personnel reductions would spare mission-essential roles. Representative Brendan Kennedy and others cited VA dashboard figures showing estimated losses in nurses, physicians and claims processors; Kennedy said such losses contradict assurances from the secretary that mission-essential roles will be preserved. Committee members pressed VA officials to provide location- and occupation-level separation and declination data and asked for the number of veteran appointments canceled because of staffing shortages; VA agreed to follow up with detailed data for the record.
The hearing included calls for legislative remedies. AFGE urged support for legislation to nullify the executive order limiting bargaining rights; some members noted recent bipartisan bills that would impose further guardrails on senior-level incentive payments. No formal legislative action occurred at the hearing; members said they would continue oversight and seek the detailed workforce data requested from VA.
