Just weeks after a federal appellate court cleared the way for the Veterans Affairs Department to declare that its union contracts with the American Federation of Government Employees have expired, the union has filed a new motion it hopes could revive the agreement.
The VA has previously been barred from terminating its union contracts after U.S. District Judge Melissa DuBose found the action likely violated employees’ First Amendment rights. But over the summer, the department announced it would let the deals expire on their own in August.
AFGE sought—for the third time—to enforce the preliminary injunction upholding their collective bargaining agreements, arguing that when the VA solicited the union to renegotiate the deal earlier this year, it triggered a clause that automatically extends the life of the current contract until a new one can be ratified. DuBose agreed, and again ordered the CBA’s reinstatement.
But earlier this month, a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit found that decision modified DuBose’s original injunction, something improper for a case that has already been appealed. Last week, the VA declared the contract to be expired for more than 95% of its bargaining unit workers.
In response, the union filed a new motion in DuBose’s court, asking her to issue an “indicative ruling” that would modify her earlier injunction and restore the contract for the remainder of negotiations, but only if the First Circuit remanded the case for that purpose.
In the filing, AFGE continued to argue that the terms of the CBA’s automatic extension provision had been met. Despite the department’s claims that the union failed to begin bargaining within 30 days for the notice for renegotiation, the union said the parties continued to conduct ground rules negotiations until management sought assistance from the Federal Service Impasses Panel last month.
“Defendants’ most recent efforts to avoid the preliminary injunction is their manufactured dispute over the phrase ‘agreed-upon term,’” attorneys for the union wrote. “The court imposed the preliminary injunction for the ‘agreed-upon term’ of the master CBA . . . To effectuate the original intent of the preliminary injunction in light of the First Circuit’s ruling and defendants’ subsequent actions, the court should modify the preliminary injunction to specify that it will terminate when the parties have finished negotiating a new agreement.”
On the same day, the union also filed a national grievance, alleging that VA management engaged in bad-faith bargaining and multiple contract violations.
Attorneys for the VA on Monday filed a response to the union’s motion. Though the document does not address the merits of last week’s filing, it objects to the union’s request for an expedited briefing schedule, noting that a decision on the motion would not take effect immediately and citing attorneys’ obligations in other lawsuits.
“Plaintiffs acknowledge that their motion for indicative ruling, even if granted, would have no immediate effect,” the filing states. “Instead, it would merely indicate to the First Circuit that this court would modify the preliminary injunction if, in the future, the First Circuit were to remand for that purpose. A decision from the First Circuit is not imminent—the parties have not yet finished briefing the case—and the First Circuit is under no obligation to remand before it resolves the appeal.”
