on tuesday, acting veterans affairs secretary peter overlooked testify before the house veterans affairs committee on implementation of the accountability and whistleblower protection act which was signed into law in june 2017. this is two hours and 25 minutes. [inaudible conversations] thank yourning and for joining us today. affairs accountability. last year enactment of this bipartisan legislation was a culmination of years of work by members of this committee one of the consequential reforms to the federal service system in decades.

and he said time and time again the vast majority are good hard-working men and women that take the core message to heart the bad action tainted the names of the good for far too long. drafting of this legislation did not happen in a vacuum but it was not an ideological partisan attack in the full house so 23 of the 24 members of the committee and 137 democrats supported by 18 veteran organizations.

with the accountability they want them to serve the veterans this could only happen when good work is rewarded when it is clear for those that were fused to or incapable of into make it extremely difficult to hold the accountable that this is unacceptable so today to

discuss with that the sustainable accountability and asset want to make it clear it did not give virginia the licensed uses authority no matter their position against whistleblowers. the department in his continued committee will shed the light on waste fraud and abuse and to worry about how implementation is going on and you can't measure success of this law and if one single man or woman is afraid to come forward to report wrongdoing because of your retaliation and then i recognized the ranking member with the office

of accountability and then to create the office and to create one that could duplicate the office and what we really weeded needed to do to make the right decisions and hold them accountable. all the management should applaud their efforts and particularly i am concerned with the recommendations submitted to congress with the growth and we are looking at addressing those concerns. and to provide the secretary a toolbox and that could turn into a new toolbox to ensure

that this doesn't happen i am no fan of red tape for bureaucracy but i am concerned that former policies and policies and procedures are part of the work product. with the ig access and they found a way to take care of this and understand that you have. with that oversight with the proper usage and implementation of this law. the only way to do this not with innuendo accounts or agendas.

and now have any additional opening statement. >> i thank you for calling this hearing. when the accountability act passed i voted for it with a great deal of caution i was cautiously optimistic that it would do what it set out to do which was to provide care by to improve care to remove bad employees that between dismissing employees was superficial. with several legislative attempts to express the virginia significant issues with human resources. i did vote against several of those attempts because i felt there were too many bad things in those bills.

so to address those employees but also good employees. now we are more than a year out i have real concerns and to provide any accountability act 1096 removals 2018 the majority of those were housekeeping aids was is no doubt contributed to the fact there are over a dozen medical centers. i have seen firsthand the problems caused at the loma linda university center and how that directly impacts care for veterans.

also there are large numbers of housekeeping aids whose performance is so poor it cannot be addressed if that is the case it stands to reason they are also management issues. hiring rank-and-file employees does nothing to have persistent management issues instead it just leads to worse care and vacancies. this type of implementation is not part of the accountability act of hope everyone can agree that it's not possible to fire but this was a commission based on findings that also found to be understaffed and under resourced this led to

problems with poor culture. exacerbated those cycle of accountability and we are to break the cycle but in the past year we have heard of that v.a. human resources and turnover is not good management so for months we have seen a steady stream of reports in the press of a hostile work in voigt -- environment previously led by peter. but then last week it was reported that mr. shelby himself was fired. although the v.a. said he left to pursue other opportunities whether those reports are true

the damage to the v.a. hr management has already been done i'm sure they are supposed to improve their resources of the toxic environment or at the top are they rampant. nose that limits the time for employees but as we all know the official time is not spent on union activities. let me repeat that so spending time on union activities is illegal. rather to have human resources functions to ensure a work environment for all employees. so with the current turmoil and vacancies the human

resources function is more important than ever to ensure that care for veterans is not impacted and then to sustain cuts from both ends does not inspire confidence at the agency the goal is not to further undercut the workforce my hope our discussion today can show what it is doing to better management and i think the witnesses to being here today and i look forward to their testimony. >> the first panel today acting secretary with those

disabled american veterans there has been a couple of hours with a time well spent and to be accompanied i the acting executive director with ed human resources you are not recognize. >> thank you mr. chairman and ranking member with the executive director of the office of accountability. and to legitimize a violation of law or regulation i will not tolerate it so that is a moral obligation and to take

action to those individuals and that includes disciplinary action that the overwhelming majority of employees are here to do the right thing the employees have a positive difference congress and virginia leaderships have the right formula to address accountability so the problems that surfaced covered serious shortfalls those problems led to the interdisciplinary crisis team in july of that year expanding into the office of accountability review the purpose was to improve transparency and elevate the visibility of senior leadership during investigation and those initial efforts and this is why it signed the accountability protection act

and the executive then to create a new paradigm for ability of whistleblower protection. we must change the culture from within i own the responsibility of that change needed to move v.a. forward and let me be clear but the size of v.a. makes time and patience to get those relationships right will not be easy to my goal is to ensure we have a better system in place that works for all employees.

you have tapped the office to develop a system to better support employees when they raise issues in the workplace. and to emphasize the need for greater transparency to promptly investigate and resolve allegations of misconduct. and that is making a difference to build on that foundation and let me talk about the accomplishments over the past year with 170 whistleblower protections at the staff quickly examined the concern and with that alleged wrongdoing.

it would to have disciplinary action and with that unique persons of interest. and then how those change to promote accountability or performance and change culture of the v.a. to do what's right with high quality care and services and benefits we can achieve that shared objection in the look forward to your questions. >> that 50 people had disciplinary action is that correct.

>> that is at the senior leader level. >> or to manage this organization? or what you used to define success. so that standup of the office with the recognition of that capability what we are trying to do the senior executives doesn't understand the purpose

and to investigate that performance but that is successful by nonthreatening environment with the unions and the groups with everyone that could take the call to reach out with questions they can have. >> i read a whistleblower. but as submitted for the record how do you make them hold in that case? >> first listening to the whistleblower. but the legitimate complaint

to understand what that definition was. but regardless to listen to them to make sure their voice was heard in with the leadership of that organization or with the supervisors to determine what was really going on. really it was just the two sides not talking to one another than weakness facilitate other times it had been too long as we needed to take other action if that was a full-blown investigation. >> but if you don't protect the whistleblowers this will fail. they have to feel that you can step forward to not be retaliated against. that is a huge deterrent in an organization as large as the v.a.

but in this bill this isn't something that existed before that they could feel is retaliatory. and to stop that action whether the office of accountability or special office and then i could not be affected if it was retaliatory or not. but how many are veterans? >> i will let mr. manley address that specifically but

in the 218 report and then to see a significant difference with unrealistic firings or removals let alone focusing on lower-level employees. >> looking at custodial workers so what we are seeing is not a significant change with less than 1% increase so granted those three occupations are the highest for terminations they compare

similarly to the private sector. your recognize. >> i understand that they are entitled to the inspector general act with paul and complete access to records and all other requests made? >> and has been complied with? even before the recent access? >> so that you will continue to provide full complete access to all ap records with

the previous request there was a very public request but that you will comply with that future request. >> it is unfortunate it was such a public issue because zero ap has been unfettered. >> but that is not what played out. >> but the commitment remains the same. >> i'm not talking about day number one but will you comply going forward? >> esb make thank you. >> with the 1096 removals less than 1.4% are supervisors and those were housekeeping aids. there has always been a

preference requirement and also for veterans so in the past that can verify by facilities. with those disabled veterans. >> so they are all veterans so they tend to be very veteran dominated? >> so of those employees that

have been removed we are talking veterans. one third of all veterans is nearly 100% but if there are so many housekeeping aids it is likely there are some management issues as well. so personal decisions not just to create vacancy at the lower level. or to remain on the job? >> so regardless if they are veterans or not. that is the highest turnover

that is closer to 200%. >> but talking about people that have been removed. >> but that turnover rate implies with removal even back at 2014 that indicates the first five months of removals. and to improve the personnel function and is also in turmoil. >> to stay on the turnover

rate. >> what are you doing to ensure that, my time has run out. >> you are recognized. >> thank you mr. chairman. to the ranking secretary, thank you so much for responding to a concern that was raised in denver colorado that led to the oig to make sure there was no conflict of interest. let's let me raise an issue of accountability. i guess this is different than what was raised but i'm concerned that your executive

service management level and with those positions that have had multiple negative reports that have never been cleaned up but yet people are allowed to remain. so specifically we are going to be opening a hospital in aurora colorado on saturday. and to be responsible for the last person there with construction management that led to that was five years from behind schedule to

replace the virginia construction management team with the army corps of engineers so without that i don't think it ever would have been built and then to find those cost overruns but under her leadership to strip of the construction management authority. yet this person is still there in charge of instruction facilities management. not only is she still there but actually she was tried to be promoted to be in charge of facilities management and contracting. whether at my behest i raised issues of her competence that

she was put back down to construction management. if we don't clean house so no matter what the new v.a. secretary says or does so at this level nothing will change. that is my concern. do you have a response. >> as you described it is a very difficult challenge looking at the culture of an organization the size and intricate at this point as we restructure to bring construction management into federal alignment hopefully that leads to better management structure and so then by adding accountability and performance as a part of that. that was new and innovative to the degree we don't give

ourselves enough credit for. that will allow us in the future once we get through the accountability side and as the ranking member mentioned and what their performances they have to do that very carefully. but that is something we have to address. how the department of veteran affairs that are just below those political appointees so i hope the new secretary would take a look across the board of where we have consistent failure those people have to be removed. on a bipartisan basis to have

that a theory to remove those managers so i just want to commend you for cleaning house. >> thank you to the chairman and the ranking member that when congress passed the whistleblower protection act it was in recognition that more accountability was needed at the v.a. and we hear that today but the accountability doesn't just mean increasing the number of employees pushed out the door but that means creating real change and culture to ensure that bad behavior is not repeated. management has enabled bad behavior and needs to be held

accountable just like those low-level employees who may not have been properly trained. for acting secretary our committee has been made aware of the significant number of career employees who have served under multiple secretaries removed or demoted or reassigned or retired as made aware adverse actions are coming their way there is a large number of personnel changes that brings about instability to manage a large agency so can you tell us now how many personnel changes you are aware of for the office of secretary personnel including executive secretary the protocol office and centers for women and minority veterans between may 30 and july 16? >> i just want to make sure i

can address two of those with women's veterans the director resigned and is now working for national security and started on monday the executive secretary we recognized we needed to make changes at the office of secretary level that required us to move people one in particular they moved to a new job the other moved to another gs 15 job. we are not on the path of things randomly they are all well-planned and design to have better efficiency and effectiveness and we are encouraging leadership to do across-the-board. if you had issues with your performance do not hesitate to

take action whether just restructuring for better performance. >> can you clarify if it is for cost or performance issues or efficiency. >> it is organizational efficiency we talk about if you have an office that is not performing the way it needs to that doesn't always mean the person was committing misconduct means were not getting the performance that we need sometimes that requires a change in leadership. >> i'm sure we will revisit this issue in six months. to be clear what is non-performance and and how are you measuring that what he doing to ensure there is better performance? to set up training or new performance there is a lot of concern and we are hearing a lot of back channel with morale and we are losing a lot

of senior people that is institutional knowledge happening all at once with an acting secretary is very destabilizing we have major pieces of legislation so to clear out that many people is a concern to change those that have the institutional knowledge you have addressed you say those were not for cause. >> with those two no action was taken so i don't know if it was for cause or not. >> are you communicating with the nominee about any of these changes? >> yes. >> do you intend to do that it is important for him to understand if confirmed what the reasons are for these changes and what you are attempting to achieve. so i would like you to follow up for the reasons of these

changes why they have moved and where they have moved and frankly we will have to look with the back channels from what we are hearing for different reasons than you are suggesting today of the rationale for these changes. it is a concern to politicize these high-level positions and that is the concern. >> i'm sorry, politicizing? >> if there is any concerns of the implications why these people are replaced that is a deep concern there is no place for politics in this agency and people need to be hell to performance standards if you go through multiple secretaries if it is a performance issue we should be aware and also the incoming nominee as we should to do oversight. thank you. i yield back. >> mr. o'rourke there is a number of employees have reached out and believe issues

within the v.a. would qualify them as whistleblowers. how does the office of accountability and protection handle the correct way with disclosure? how do you train them? >> there has been ongoing training or awareness from office a special counsel and t5 required by statute to post what do you do to those two agencies as disclosure whistleblower protection is new we had to educate what we needed him by statute we are required to identify a form and toll-free number that was within the first few weeks we continue to refine those but those are available to all employees we also have the

website updated to describe very clearly what is a disclosure to show we really understood that we had to listen to employees to let them talk about their issues because if they feel they cannot talk to their management or supervisors they need someone to talk to and what we found is what caused a lot of this to fester and grow and then become a bigger issue we have done a lot in that area. we have more to do we have trained 40000 you have those specific numbers. >> 2000 hr professionals and attorneys and supervisors and specifically from the senior executive office as well. >> so when somebody comes forward who goes to them? is it somebody trained from

your office or at the site were they are at? how is that handled? >> if they reach out to us they have multiple channels they have congress office of inspector general or counsel they can go anywhere to make their disclosure if they come to us through the form or through the hotline or the toll-free number so then our folks will talk to them if they reach out and just submit the form and we reach out to them to develop that disclosure to give a sense of what it is we handhold them through that process that is the most effective. >> so to shift, prior to the hearing that was requested

copies of written policies and directives and regulations that were sent out and what they received they thought were lacking to say the least. is there an intent for a larger policy to be put together when someone for our office request what is the checklist how do you do that and how do we know what you are doing is it for the whistleblower or write for the agency? >> i will take criticism of tha that. earlier we had a bias to action to reach out and work with the whistleblowers. we had quite a bid of legacy or just backlog of whistleblowers to reach out. so we did focus more on the operational side now we are trying to see what we have learned from the process

standpoint to change that we do have work to do to create actual regulations around what we do we do have an "in-depth" process to sit down with the oig to see how we handle disclosures which is interesting because it will have a similar mission but that is more work we have to do. >> you mentioned earlier about the 714 hold? exactly how did that work? >> when the whistleblower is given an adverse action would have previously disclosed to whistleblower protection then we will reach out the supervisor and say you will

hold this action until you hear from us so they cannot move forward. >> my time is expired but demotion or suspension or anything. >> yes. >> you are recognized. >> i certainly agree with your opening comments in terms of change of culture within the v.a. and many have already spoken to that and i concur with your perspective changing culture takes time and persistence it isn't easy to change a culture of a large organization. but we also know that the v.a. is only is as good as the employees. and i would say the secretary

changing culture is the top priority without question but we continue and i am concerned we still get negative reporting around the morale within the agency and the morale is not very good. so my first question would be since the accountability act was instituted do you think morale has increased or decreased since the act has been applied? >> anecdotally on trips i'm not saying that to counter yours but best what we know from our own employees survey and when we will have those

results in hot process to get that back will definitely share them with you. >> we did conduct an all employees survey every year every employee across the v.a. to give us an adf morale and how things are going so this year it closes on june 25 our commitment is to have those results to go 45 days later so in mid august we will have those results i am already to come back and brief this committee i believe on those results of the survey. >> so the previous morale survey what were the results? >> the virginia went down a list of places to work so we are comparing those results to see how we have done.

>> who will be leading the personnel department now that we have a vacancy? >> right now officially the principal deputy is leading that office. >> what is your assessment of the current leadership there and what is your plan to ensure the office remains fully functional to meet the needs of the despite these recent departures? >> i don't think any office across the federal government is dependent on one person it is important to have leadership to have full confidence in the leadership team and we will be working with them on our expectations we have that hr function and those are massive organizations across the territories and the countries

and there is a huge challenge and we will make sure they have everything they need to continue the progress we have already made. >> from my perspective hr is in a weak spot across the v.a. if they aren't filling vacancies than other departments are not operating at full capacity so that is a constant issue we have debated and discussed many times here in the committee so to actually fill these vacancies in a timely manner with high quality people is really important. so i do see this as the weakest link in the system and really we need to be focused on it very much so. so again it goes to my

question around your plan and your personal involvement will be to make sure that this department is operating as effectively as possible. >> we are taking this leadership involvement at a very serious level. >> my time is up and i yield back. >> you are not recognized for five minutes. >> thank you mr. chairman and secretary for coming in to review the accountability and whistleblower protection act there have been articles regarding the number of v.a. physicians who were whistleblowers making legitimate complaints they reported allegations of limiting access to computers bullying and intimidation with actual threats against their medical license or false claims to the medical board in

fact there was a case of a physician who reported overprescribing inappropriate use of opioids and after reporting those her practice privileges were suspended and false allegations made to her medical board these are chilling things for your physicians to hear those that you employee or the perspective so how do you protect these physician whistleblowers? >> i think everyone of those claims of retaliation of that nature are made they are immediately addressed through the triage process. i can tell you with my experience with those cases there is a lot more to the story so we try to find all of the elements we can to make a determination very quickly to send that to the medical

inspector. >> so i see a number 319 complaints over the last year of retaliation against whistleblowers is that correct? >> think an organization like the v.a. that has not done what it should to define what retaliation is from an educational standpoint simple but also to really dig into that use examples to have every level of management hold each other accountable for that type of behavior. i have seen incredibly egregious examples and also claims of retaliation that absolutely were not. >> as somebody does have legitimate retaliation what action can the v.a. take for the employee that was retaliating. >> there are two forms in the

department to take adverse action and it has to be in those categories. >> can you give me a for instance. >> we have removed individuals for that normally after the second requirement the office of special counsel mandatory is a 14 days or more suspension with the first instance of retaliation. >> it is important to protect their anonymity. >> absolutely. >> that is a key concern if somebody does come to your office with a legitimate complaint about opioids that they don't know that this is not public knowledge that they made that complaint. >> that is the single highest

reason we have given four retaliation is because they were of whistleblower there are other claims with other types of activity but that is a single highest. >> so to protect the witness if you will like witness protection program so the official time when the employees are working with union duties on the payroll that is supposed to be reported we are supposed to know how much going through the process and that is inconsistent and unreliable. do you have faith in that? will that give us honest data? >> yes or we will start to record their official time 472 employees will go back to work

and of those psychologist 62 are physicians. >> so this can help us manage to give folks credit for that official time they need to use. >> when will that be rolled out? >> we are on the hook this month for deployment. . . . .

-- we spent two visits on the ground it interviewing whistleblowers and the others.

are mentioningou on the criminal side, think there was some resolution with the individuals relative. >> if you could get back to us on that as well. the other is in bedford. we had a health subcommittee meeting in late june. this is in relation to a study showing the v.a. has the highest

rate of sexual harassment across all federal agencies. his office was dismissive. do you accept the findings of this study? what are you doing about this? what is the timeline for actions to address this? except that can of response. it is a serious issue. at the office of accounting and whistleblower protection, and he claims, i don't care with a came from, any claims of sexual harassment and retaliation regarding that are anything require 48-hour response to of investigators on the ground on investigation. so we have no tolerance for any

kind of delay in that. i will turn it over to mr. manley. we started a program in 2016. we have been going over what we need to make it more robust program. are there needs for more training? we have a strong policy. we have done strong updates to our handbook. at the prompting of the oc, although they like what they saw they gave us suggestions which were implemented an hour handbook. strictlyrt training with an active component by employees? are they engaged with the trainer? trainerve a train the

program so we can do in person training. >> i think it is much more effective in person. we have also tried to make changes here on capitol hill. sorry, my time is up but knowing this is from the top-down down and there is a policy of dealt tolerance. i apologize to the chair, i yield back. >> med behavior is bad behavior. ofcan very to the amount categories. but the reporting system in this case needs to be standardized.

if we do not have a standardized way of reporting all the way up the chain, you will have variances. we went to standardize outcomes. if you've done something heinous, there should be a pretty severe outcome. if you've done something that could be considered a unintentional but was behavior, that is a different way. it is kind of like in the military with they uniform military code of justice. we have the flexibility. but let's talk about standardization. business all the erectors here, do you think intuition, wer would hear a standardized answer from them as to how they are implementing the act as we and vision that? >> no.

there a records or hope that we can get it to an 80% commonality? yes, this organization has part of its culture as independents from division to division, medical center to medical center. if you've visited one medical oneer, you've visited medical center. that's not a great thing to say in all categories, so it requires more engagement working with senior leadership teams to deal with that.

it has been lead by example. we see this mostly on the whistleblower protection side, with vision directors taking the lead of reintegrating whistle blowers that have been for many reasons thoughts and their sides for many reasons. they allow people to reintegrate into the organization to provide the value they can. we have a few that have shown what can be done. it is getting the word out to .he others and encouraging them

>> if we had all the vision directors sitting at the table and set of you all, do you think they would feel the temperature in the seat? >> i know they will. i will pass that along. bergman: some of the our committee has side, the lack of the sense of urgency we have sent false back .n leadership whether it is ours as a u.s.ttee of the whole or the leadership communicating it ,own your chain of command because unfortunately in the end it all boils sent to the same outcome and that is a veteran or group of veterans just not get the services they need, they require for a healthy life or whatever happens it to be to

benefit them. the reason this was put into place was to hold people accountable, but most importantly to protect those who saw bad behavior and felt compelled on behalf of the veterans to raise their hand and say, this is wrong. i see my times about to expire but we are here with you. we will give you all the hammers you need, but you need to swing them. o'rourke, the committee received many statements to the record from former v.a. employees after becoming whistleblowers. these included problems with not keeping disclosure confidential, which resulted in severe retaliation. this is very concerning since the very purpose for the creation of oap was to

centralize the whistleblower protection in one place to prevent such things from happening anymore. i want to point out two of the statements while you were ahead of oh wap. the first was from a physician who stated it was difficult to get the opportunity to talk to wap case manager. he said his case manager was the even aware of a finding and that oawp did nothing to help. another, daniel martin, said oa himotified management about

and as a result of that he experienced retaliation that strip him of his job except in name only. be two examples of whistleblower protection actually doing the exact opposite. what say you about this since you were in charge of that department? crankset case predated the wp and wasnt of oa much down the road. his identity was already proliferated everywhere. his case has been reviewed by os osc.- we did not have a chance to investigate because it was not even in our hands and i believe that resulted with them being and remove in the was supporting that decision. some retaliation

to him in this way. there are more details we need to go into. they were disciplined for retaliation because they did screw up. they were not handling it the way they should. they got the mandatory osc retaliation a 14 day suspension. crankset is the problem -- >> that is the problem. the discipline for retaliation is not strong enough. otherre were several mitigating factors. >> it seems to me there is always a vision of the doubt given to people who retaliate against whistleblowers. you shake your head. >> i don't agree with that. >> ok, but we've seen examples of it. i want to get to the hotline. what is the status of the hotline. still no oversight mechanism?

whistleblower hotline? >> the toll-free number that we maintain, there is oversight in the sense of oag looking at the files. >> no, oversight as making sure it is being implemented. i know it exists, but it does not seem to be much information about how people can access it. >> i will take that as a critique. >> oh no, it's a fact. top 10 has been a communication of getting the word out. we have done emails. it is consistency and having folks realize there is a new outlet for disclosure. there is already hotline at aig, osc, there are multiple ways for disclosures to be made. ours got created last june. it will take a while for everybody to understand.

we know it is confusing. >> had we make it less confusing? when i you tell us? >> create one. you have to take it away from the office of special counsel and of the so general. i think this should have as many outlets for making disclosure as need. we will work on where that disclosure is. it requires more cooperation. >> the problem is it is how you get information to people and how easy you make it for people to actually dial a number. i think they're obviously needs to be more oversight. thank you, i yield back. thank you chairman. thank you for being here mr. o'rourke. you have a great colonel sitting behind you, i'm the end user of the v.a. to the tee. i get every bit of my health

care through the v.a.. i hold weekly office hours in the v.a. for any veteran who once you talk about any issue v.a. related or otherwise. i walk the halls there frequently. i see them. i see my fellow veterans constantly. i see the smiles on them and i see their truly heartfelt gratitude when they get the care they were seeking at the v.a. and i also see their frustration when their care was lacking in timeliness or appropriateness. you've said in this hearing several times you want to see a

change in the culture. i want to give you a chance to a spouse upon that. what would you change in the culture of the v.a. if you had a warned. if you could build it up brick by brick, what would change in the culture of the v.a. for you. what would be your tolerance for any negligence whatsoever, big or small? what would you change about that? that is my question for you. i give you the next few minutes on how you would change the culture of the v.a. first, starting with the office of accountability at to resulted knowledge that is where this starts. it starts with accountability, whether it is some frontline employee making a bed or a medical center director who has multiple issues during the day but needs to find where they should put their priorities.

we know that from observation. aterans walking through hospital who pass the medical center director and got to speak to them briefly, they know the leadership at the local center is engaged. the medical centers i visit, you can feel the difference when leadership is engaged. the first thing would be medical center erectors, leadership fully engaged with veterans, .ith staff listening, raising concerns, raising issues whether it is winding or alignment of resources. bring in that up and having that be seen. one of the things that is frustrating as between our administrations, between our staff offices, we have times when we do not work together on albums. we try to work individually or not think of them too much. breaking down those barriers workingi.t. end vha,

problems collaboratively with the veterans outcome in mind. that is been said before. it is not new. it is truly in the execution from the very processes to support that. that is what i would change immediately if i could. that involves personalities. then involves people who have been doing things several careers. well-developedth processes and opinions is difficult. it takes time. that when you have something like this that links together, why i don't think we give ourselves or congress gives themselves enough credit on this is they put together accountability performance with this whistleblower retaliation protection piece. it is not well defined.

we get stories that come in different ways. i'm not discrediting any of them but really getting to the truth is difficult. it requires people to with judgment sometimes, then look at facts. not just go off on the track. why i think this is so critical is it gives us the tools of leadership to talk to other leaders and say, here is all you need to hold yourself accountable. old people accountable. how you should be performing. it should not just be an empty discussion. and say, i will come back in six months and i will remove you, and your service. it is not something anybody in this office came to lightly. when we go to a director and say, your service is not over, sometimes they have had 15-20 years of service. it is a monumental thing to do. it is going to motivate them to

be more accountable. when you see it, would love to take this folks and make an example of them across the v.a. >> thank you, thank you for yielding back. >> thank you for being here with us today. veteransa., serving should always come out. we have to root out toxic culture. we have the accountability act, a big stretch for us to give the v.a. the tools to make sure everyone from the secretary down to those in the cafeteria are serving the veterans, not the bureaucracy. our former secretary says he did not think this would be a 12 that would lead to mass firings. dan caldwell wrote an article board "one accountable stands in the way of

accountability." you for they could appeal decisions, now they can't. the article says there is a history of blocking the consequences of negligence and bad employees. isaacson said he thought it would create a culture of accountability at the v.a.. ultimately, i supported the bill because i thought it was the best compromise to hold the v.a. accountable to fix its own culture. i want to explore the possibility and address numbers that we not create a culture of your as opposed to accountability -- of fear as opposed to accountability. thinking any mistake could make them lose her job or being afraid to step up. my colleagues observed last year that senior executives are where

the decisions are made, not lower level fulks. -- not at the lower level. out -- unders put is v.a.'s leadership which now firmly aligned with trump, the department has improved in a number of ways. the board withn this administration's policy or pace of change have dealt departed v.a. will stop i wonder under what circumstances you think that disagreeing with the administration has a fireball fireable offense. >> i appreciate, without identifying who they are, what does that mean. what is the context for that?

>> anytime you start shifting the organization whether it is electronic health record, those kind of things, fulks realize on there and they don't want to be there. there are a couple things we can s in seniorlk positions, they felt like it wasn't a place they wanted to be anymore. >> said is a personal decision. thisfelt, i don't match organization. none of them were asked to leave? >> know, those really and up being, in fact in some cases we found there was not in alignment at all with where the v.a. was going so i'm surprised they stayed as long as they did.

>> i understand if someone is not involved in a high level, they might be asked to leave. we are talking at different levels, dr. shulkin, this committee, congress. we have some very historic and transformative actions happening that will change the status quo. when that became the reality, people had to sit back and take stock. do you make sure people are not disciplined and fired for their own personal beliefs? at the fbi we just had a gentleman who was by all evidence doing his job and was removed from a case because there was a perception he was biased. how do you parse out when people's personal dealings about the administration might be out of line but they are doing their job ok? are you trying to stick those people?

whistleblower, unrelated to politics, absolutely. they get the same protection across the board. misconduct has a very specific definition. rep. peters: it has nothing to do with individual personal believes? o'rourke:no -- mr. no. >> how many employees to have who were hired for specific jobs outlined in the posting who are now spending 100% of their time on union activity? : almost 500 time ons spend 100% of the other things. how do you hold them accountable? i think recent executive orders

well require all employees to go back. this is the only allowable union time. can you hold those employees accountable for doing a job they are required to do with if they are spending 100% of their time on union activity and not the position needed? can you hold them accountable? currently, can you hold them accountable under the current construct? i mean, if the answer is no, it is no. just get to it.

-- do you believe somebody spending 100% of their time on union activity is reasonable, necessary, or in the best interest of the public? o'rourke: i think i would answer that by saying i am looking forward to serving in an area of mental health very critical for the v.a. >> do you think them spending time outside of the area they were hired to do what is in the best interest for the public? this is the law of the land. is it reasonable? mr. o'rourke: i can tell you i was hired to serve. a hard look ate

what we were doing to serve veterans. >> it is hard to serve veterans when you are hired to do a job -- anybody listening to this across this great country is howtching their head about we can create a culture of accountability when you have policies in place where somebody can spend 100% of their time on something other than what they were hired to do. how can that be acceptable? what about you, mr. nicholas? do think it is reasonable? mr. nicholas: no. >> thank you. maybe you need to file that when you get back because i appreciate your honesty. do people have a constitutional right to a job at the v.a.? >> no sir, not that i'm aware

of. >> should employees be held to a different standard of accountability than those taxpaying americans who work outside of the federal government? should there be two different standards? o'rourke:: no, -- mr. no, sir. >> do they have the right to leave the v.a. and work somewhere else that they don't like how they were treated? yes, sir.ke: >> do the 130 million people who are not part of the federal government system and the v.a., did they have american protection system board and what is their standard of evidence? mr. o'rourke: when someone outside of the government is fired, what is the standard by which the employee has to --

>> when someone outside of the government is fired, what is the standard by which the employee is held to. you said, in 2014, were there about the same proportionally low wage and veteran employees -- there's a percentage, the same percentage of a trend exists today. mr. o'rourke: yes, sir. a -- for low-wage, high wage people, long-haired people, blue eyed people who are not performing well? do i need to know about that if there is a loophole, we need to fix it. mr. o'rourke: no, sir.

>> gentlemen, the v.a. has a very important mission to take care of our veterans who have served our country honorably. the job is a function of personnel. 99% of the services are personnel-related. personnel related. what have we done to retain employees? in this committee, we talked about the fact that salaries are not competitive in many places. what do we need to do to make sure that we hold on to those valued employees at the v.a.? >> it is that accountability. when employees to not feel safe. when they want to blow the whistle and cannot will stop if

they blow the whistle and do not see anything happen. maybe they just talk to their supervisor and don't see response. that is an accountability issue. before when we had a culture of, well if i do not do anything this time it won't make difference. problems overose time. the slop provided -- this law provided more tools for us to do that. ofhas to be intent leadership, to make sure we hold each level of management accountable to provide employees at every level -- >> let me ask a different way and flip this around. retaining employees, what are we doing to make their life like they wake up and say, i am going to wake up and go help. >> that is answered very easily.

serving veterans is the best job you can have. i even told political appointees who got job than working at the v.a., because you get to work with veterans. rep. correa: do we have an issue with turnover? mr. o'rourke: it will require work on our part, on your part. jodey, i-4 you leave, i will follow-up on some of your comments. i want to work with you. how do you make it a better place to work? jodey, i want to follow-up with some of your line of questions in the time that i have got. are there any employees of the the v.a. should be at as opposed to working somewhere else? mr. o'rourke: not that i am aware of, but i will check back. arrington, her.

has got a good point, you are supposed to be dedicated 100% of your time working to take care of our vets. i just want to make sure -- are v.a. any employees at the who are not actually working at the v.a. but maybe other departments that you are assigned to. mr. o'rourke: we brought people to the v.a. to help us. the lady running our programming is from hhs. highly qualified, highly skilled. we brought the best we could find. rep. correa: i would like to go back and look at your notes and see if there are other folks out there that are not working in the v.a. that should be working in the v.a.. mr. o'rourke: absolutely. sir, i am not aware of any. rep. correa: i will yield the rest of my -- go ahead. you went along with the

characterization that official time is union time. is it true that official time can be used to conduct union business? doesn't the law prohibit that? mr. o'rourke: i believe that it does. why did you not respond to mr. arrington's response as using union time and official time stated as the same thing. ? are they the same thing? mr. o'rourke: they are commonly referred to as the same thing. but are they the same thing? we have gotten lazy in our language, and that is the opportunity being exploited by mr. arrington, by going after official time -- official time is not union time, it is not time to conduct union business. is that correct? mr. o'rourke: sir, i want to get

my psychologists back to work. rep. takano: is that correct? mr. o'rourke: they are not the same thing, and at the end of the day, they are the same thing, there are people working . rep. takano: they are not the same thing. chair roe: the gentleman's time has expired. >> i would like to yield my time to mr. arrington. rep. arrington: thank you, mr. higgins. i think it is the same thing. get it andbody can just read through it. you can have someone on "official time," which i believe his time spent on union activity, actually brought to congress. that is one of the issues or activities that has been applied, determined acceptable to union conferences, there are all sorts of things that i would , i am not saying there

should not be union spirit i am takeg if you are hired to position and provide health services to a veteran and then lobbying% of your time for your union, going to conferences for your union -- i do not think it is acceptable, reasonable, or in the best interest of the public to i am trying to follow the law. i yield back to my colleague, mr. higgins. rep. higgins: thank you. mr. chairman, i think in the entrance of bipartisanship, we should consider a committee. we all care about the same thing. mr. o'rourke, thank you for being here. do you generally recognized, sir, that this is an era of reform in the v.a., that the v.a. has been a mess for decades? it did not get that way under one executive or one v.a. committee.

this committee and a very bipartisan manner has just touched my spirit, has embrace a challenge to reform the v.a. does the v.a. get it, but this is an era of reform? mr. o'rourke: i do not think any organization self-reforms. is there a clear understanding within the culture that you described, if you could change one thing or if you can identify one thing that reflects this era of the v.a., that is an air of accountability? but i want to talk about -- is there a consequence to accountability? i am just asking you, sir, generally speaking, as a man, as an american, isn't recognized within the v.a. that we have to reform this thing?

mr. o'rourke: i think there are a growing number of people in the the a who recognize that. rep. higgins: further judges that give deference to penalty sessions? mr. o'rourke: yes. rep. higgins: are others giving deference to penalty decisions? mr. o'rourke: not consistently. rep. higgins: what can we do as to hope you enforce within the executive to follow the timeline? are you familiar with use in law enforcement -- confidential informant use in law enforcement? mr. o'rourke: guess. rep. higgins: do you know what happens if they reveal the identity? mr. o'rourke: yes. rep. higgins: we pretty much find them in a ditch somewhere. whistleblowers are pretty much confidential informants.

should come on the other side of the aisle, discuss regarding the protection of whistleblowers' identity. how can we discuss protecting the identity of whistleblowers? mr. o'rourke: you bring up a great point, because with retaliation cases, the idea of the whistleblower is no longer protected. rep. higgins: exactly. there can be no retaliation if there is no identity exposed. i think we should have great concern amongst executive and amongst this body regarding the crucial importance, the protection of whistleblowers' identities, because they are, in effect, confidential informants, and no more will come forward. these reformn efforts if we do not place a great deal of emphasis on the protection of these identities. like to say that,

in cases that have been brought up on my colleagues regarding someone who has been accused of egregious hader, are they -- behavior, are they allowed to continue on a job, or are they placed on administrative leave? mr. o'rourke: depending on their functional area. rep. higgins: you have the power to place them on unpaid administrative leave? mr. o'rourke: i believe that has been restricted, and it had been abused in the past. rep. higgins: perhaps you need that power. mr. chairman, my time has expired. chair roe: mr. lamb is recognized for five minutes. o'rourkeb:, a couple of questions about the official time coming union time, that time, whatever you want to call it, that is governed iv collect and learning agreement and the v.a., correct? mr. o'rourke: yes. rep. lam:b and that is struck by the members of the union and ee, and they were allowed

to decide how the time is to be used as part of the contract? mr. o'rourke: yes. this is a contract with rolled over for how many years now? seven? seven years. lamb: no one held a gun to your head. mr. o'rourke: no. we did negotiate away management rights that we were not supposed to do. sure, but the contract is open to the public are you were in the military, right, mr. o'rourke? mr. o'rourke: yes. rep. lamb: in the military, officers are frequently held accountable for the actions of their subordinates? mr. o'rourke: yes. rep. lamb: you're familiar with the phrase open "officers eat last." even if it is not the officer's

direct fault, they have a responsibility for the people beneath the. that promotes a pretty good culture in the military, right? mr. o'rourke: for the most part, yes. on yourb: do you draw experiences in the military in the the eight? be o'rourke: i try to cognizant that i am in the civilian space, but yes. given our expectations, that is what our shared experiences are. rep. lamb: when you create that kind of culture, you have leaders who go out and take responsibility for the people below them, even when no one tells them to. the people below them succeed that, because they do not want the person who is leading them to get fired, if they like them, if they think they are doing a good job. if you talk about creating a culture, that is what they do day to day. if you look at 2018 of nerve the

operations of law, there have firedbout 15 managers overall, and it is fair to say wherever these numbers are, have been hundreds of housekeepers, food service workers, nursing assistants fired in that same time. mr. o'rourke: i think that is where the analogy starts to break down a bit because we are talking about high turnover hourly wage. rep. lamb: i am just talking about people being fired. there are hundreds of people. rep. lamb: we talking about highly desperate numbers. rep. lamb: but that comparison of absolute numbers is accurate. mr. o'rourke: i think we need to look at the percentages. if you talk about senior leading moving the percentage and the change. rep. lamb: exactly. at the same time, we have a lot of vacancies in the lower-level positions, right? example, near for

where my district is, we have seen 46 adverse actions against low-level employees since the law was implemented, and there are 300 vacancies amongst similar positions. i want to ask you, if you are one of the people who are left, who has not been fired, let's say you are a food-service worker or a housekeeper, you have seen colleagues receive adverse actions in the past year. there are 300 of your potential collects missing, because there are vacancies. you would agree that would increase the workload for you, right? mr. o'rourke: i think we need to put this in context, because there were probably the same number fired the year before and year before that. rep. lamb: in the state of affairs today, there are people missing -- mr. o'rourke: these are not easy places to hire into, and with the reference references, it makes it difficult to fill those positions. rep. lamb: from a housekeeper's vantage point, they have seen 46 of their colleagues punished in

the last year, 300 of the missing. their work is additional every single day, and very few, if any, managers have been dismissed in that time. do you think they feel like they are part of a culture where officers eat last today? mr. o'rourke: i do not think that is going to be the best way to describe that -- rep. lamb: i don't think so, either. mr. chairman, i yield the balance of my time. chair roe: thank you all for yielding. mr. secretary, thank you. being no further questions, the first panel is dismissed. i would like to invite the second panel to the witness table. thank you for your service. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2018] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy.

visit ncicap.org] chair roe: joining us on our second panel this morning is jeffrey david cox, sr., the national president of the american federation of government employees. mr. cox, you are recognized for five minutes mr. cox: thank you for the opportunity to testify today. has demoralized and harmless dedicated workforce, one third of whom are veterans themselves. here is what the so-called accountability looks like under the new law. although the v.a. has tried to it from fact by denying

congress limits on published data tells a terrible story, of the 196,000 employees fired in the first five months of 2018, only 15 were supervisors. housekeeping aids, virtually all of whom are disabled vets, were the largest number fired, followed by nursing assistants, food-service workers, and other assistance to these groups make up 51% of all removals. the v.a. has refused to provide information on veteran status of my gender or race of those fired. even though we do not have complete data, the disproportionate impacts on veteran workforce is undeniable. forof our current openings housekeeping aids or for veterans and virtually all pay less than $35,000 annually.

nursing assistant positions andt at around $30,000, food service national postings with hourly wages as low as $11 an hour. these are the jobs of the people being fired under the new accountability law. this destructive law was enacted despite warnings from experts that mismanagement, not the union, and not job protections for frontline employees, was undermining the v.a.'s capability to deliver service this to veterans. health care experts repeatedly presented evidence that the the a health care system outperforms the private sector. before anyone points to the phoenix scandal as justification recall that, please statements by phoenix the a patient schedulers confirmed that the wait list gaming was caused by severe shortages of providers and distorted management incentive systems, not the union, contract, and not

incompetent or heartless workers who could not be fired. gaming be scheduling system has been a product ever since post-9/11 veterans started returning home with medical needs over 15 years ago. we have been telling congress that chronic short staffing has been causing waitlist manipulation and access problems that the a medical centers. we have also been asking for additional staff to discuss the -- address the claims backlog at the v.a. thanks to the accountability law, claims processing positions, veterans service representatives, rating specialist, claim examiner, and claims assistance were among the largest groups of fire employees in truth thousand eight in -- in 2018. distraint union rights seem to choice toicle of further privatization. havee accountability laws

led to to the firing in providing administrative judge us when the evidence does not removal. law,e the accountability the a routinely offered employees a chance to improve performance before firing them. now the agency is using is new authority not to orto shorten it to go straight to firing. filing was supposed to provide protections for whistleblowers, but as we warned, it has had the opposite effect. a is easier than ever to fire whistleblower, and you can see examples of how this has occurred in my written statement. i want to conclude that by pointing out that the v.a. has not moved to the all union representatives from the officers as the social security administration did last week, no conversation about federal management labor relations should occur without addressing this. attempted tomp is

ruthlessly bust our union with his executive orders. while many members of congress have spoken out against these lawless decrees, i ask that this committee act to stop the v.a. from behaving in the same rigorous manner of the ssa -- as the ssa. this has a responsibility to prevent the executive branch from breaking the law and destroying federal unions. and iyou, mr. chairman, would be happy to take any questions. chair roe: thank you, mr. cox. for the record, when i came to congress into a thousand nine, the v.a. had -- in 2009, the ba had about -- employees come and were spending $90 billion on cemeteries and health care. andbudget is $92.5 million, i am not sure what the number is, but 370,000 members at the v.a.'s largest in the united

states navy, so we have added 100,000 something employees in the last nine years, and doubled the budget. that looks to me like the v.a. is managing it assets. i would disagree with you. i think the investment is a huge part of this problem. we are not doing something right. we are not getting the bang for our buck if we do that. basically what evidence do you have that the accountability law is used improperly, when i am pre-, 68.2% of dismissals were there, and out -- now it is6% 52.6%. so it has gone down, not up. chair roe: mr. chairman, -- mr. cox: mr. chairman, i think if you would look at the fact

that 15 management employee, and i heard the acting secretary say there are only hundred something, there are ends of thousands of managers throughout the rank and file throughout the v.a., from housekeeping supervisors, food service supervisors, and many of those, and 15 is a grossly disproportionate -- the scandal was all caused by top management in the v.a. by management incentives, which we all know was not from the front-line employees who was blowing the whistle who our union had to represent, because that management was trying to fire them, sir. i would like to add many of these veterans are returning and continue to return, and we are not making just a 50-year commitment, we are making a 60-year, possibly 70-year commitment to hundreds and thousands of veterans, and yet the number of staff is going up, and there are hundreds and thousands of veterans whose lives have changed. i have suffered with a break leg

for a little while, and i have learned how veterans are suffering every day of their life. chair roe: not to filibuster my time, but basically, this congress, this bipartisan committee has provided resources to the v.a. mr. cox: and we are thankful for what you have done. chair roe: we have over doubled the amount of money, and the remainder, the other part is a of ourionary part budget here, to we voted for the omnibus budget in march of this year, had remained flat. so we took money from other agencies and funded the v.a. i think it is disingenuous to say or imply that this committee or the congress is not providing resources for the vi i do not disagree with you, mr. cox amma on management. i think that is part of our problem. let me ask you a question -- do you think there are fire a -- five herbal

offenses at the v.a.? reable offenses at the v.a.? mr. cox: yes. chair roe: if the law is being done properly, what would you do to change this law, if it is not being done as it is written, as attended as a voice vote from the united states vote. mr. cox: i would change the law to go back to the proper penalties, the judges to mitigate penalties, because due process and having the checks and balances is the way we avoid having a politicized federal work or summa and now, when we basically have a use who can be -- have employees who can be basicallyell, we have apolitical workforce -- chair roe: you would recommend going back to what we had, which clearly was not working. this is working

perfectly yet, but what we had was not working either. in your written statement, you of it has a private veterans the benefits of service of employees with extensive training and experience to be fired without a fair chance to move there performance. even if i accept this premise, why is it such a great employees with extensive training and experience me time to improve their performance? of our: number one, many veterans that are hired, they are hired with service-connected disabilities. one of them ptsd. many of us know that have a background him as i am a nurse and you are a doctor, we understand the own list of ptsd, and working with those employees and also that their behavior, sometimes we have to do late, and i will come and some other government agencies that have realized that and have tried to put in accommodating situations of people with ptsd. we understand sometimes if you

are in a wheelchair or have a physical disability, but there are many disabilities that we should certainly try to work with. chair roe: my time has expired. mr. connolly? rep. connolly: thank you. said onemr. o'rourke of the things we have been doing to ensure limitation and protection is listening. do you feel like you have been listening or that members have been included in protective conversations -- productive conversations? mr. cox: no, sir, and with this whistleblower protection, we are not aware of any training or mechanism that the v.a. has done fileiter frame rank and employees. i believe i heard mr. o'rourke

say they have trained managers. we are not aware of any training. we have one time was to the telephone number we publicized for our membership to allow them to just have it. after that, i believe the v.a. put up a number. rep. takano: how much time does a housekeeping aide typically, the employees for which the veterans' preference and noncompetitive set-aside was meant to benefit, how much time does a housekeeping aide get to improve their performance as compared to, say, a director who is not implementing the law properly? currently the v.a. has seen it will only get maybe 30 are, and many times they not even giving 30 days for a housekeeping aide to improve their performance. historically -- and i worked in the a many, many years -- i found that managers be transferred from one v.a. to another v.a. with gigantic relocations of bonuses and

various things. i know this committee has certainly investigated that, and you could not th deny those facts. they stand for themselves, sir. rep. takano: the picture that my colleague in pennsylvania, mr. lamb, presents about the huge number of vacancies at these low level jobs, in these entry-level areas, and housekeeping, that is the vacancies, but then the idea people are dismissed in one year has got to have impact on morale. mr. cox: it does have an impact on morale, and particularly when people believe that folks are fired without a due process. when people have their due process rights, they are offered opportunities to improve. they don't improve, i agree with what the chairman said, i believe some people fire themselves, the v.a. or no other entity fires them, and that

burden ship is on them, but given thed to be opportunity, and they need to be properly instructed. rep. takano: mr. cops, mr. o'rourke talked about training and whistleblower rights. heard of any nonmanagement receiving training on their whistleblower rights? mr. cox: no, sir, we have it. rep. takano: i heard mr. o'rourke say quietly as he was including testimony, he was kind of complaining about the veterans preference, that that is the reason why there are these vacancies that places like mr. lamb's facility, and i have heard similar complaints made about the inability to hire sufficient housekeeping staff. and let us be clear -- the housekeeping staff is not an unskilled position. they need to be trained in biohazard. it is a very important role to keep the facilities clean and

keep everything moving. sense that the veterans preference is getting in the way of hiring sufficient staff? mr. cox: sir, i believe that veterans who have served this country loyally and what it all on the line so that i have the freedom of speech and all the rights that everyone in this room has and that we have the greatest checks and balances in our government, they deserve those jobs, and i will always say veterans preference ought to prevail. in this executive order, really restrictive use of official time, is official time -- could it be used to help some of these veterans who are employees in these positions, especially the ones with ptsd, in the housekeeping roles, is that an imperfect use of housekeeping official time?

mr. cox: yes, sir, it is. rep. takano: is that what official time is used for? mr. cox: yes, sir, it is. rep. takano: i did not get into the collective bargaining agreement, but i will yield back. thank you. i want to check a few numbers with you. the number of members you have in the v.a., i have a number of 242,0050, is that correct? mr. cox: we have right at a quarter million. numbere take the lower and multiply that out, that is $52 million per year. -- whytion to you is should the taxpayer be footing office space, for

equipment, supplies, or employees for a union that very clearly has the means to some or all of those things on its own? mr. cox: sir, i am not sure you are computing those numbers just out of the v.a., and i believe if you check it is national budget, about $80 million, and that is coming from all of our government agencies to you can check our l.m. that is online. numbernn: do i have the right, that it is $18 a month? the numbers vary. we have over 1000 local. some of them may be less than $10 a pay period. congress passed the -- rep. dunn: i do not want you to filibuster our time now. v.a. employees 100%

of the time not doing the job they were paid to do. these are often highly skilled positions, psychologists and physicians, who are hired to be psychologists and physicians, and have literally never seen a patient. does that make sense to you? mr. cox: we cannot discriminate against anyone who wants to run or act as a union official or be elected. rep. dunn: i am not talking about being a union official, i am talking about their official payingax players are their salary, and they are not working for the taxpayers, they are working for the unit. willox: that is where we disagree, because they are working for the taxpayers because the wisdom of congress in 1978 and got right of official time, and it will be up to congress to pass -- me talk about the official time for a minute here the legal constitute of official time is "reasonable, necessary, and in the best interest of the public.

"is that in the best interest of the public to take a psychologist, a hysician -- it is difficult to recruit to the v.a. -- and to put them to work doing the union duties? yield to the i wisdom of congress in 1978 when they pass the law -- rep. dunn: you are taking a risk talking about the wisdom of congress, i will tell you that. how do you think the american public will react when they realize we have literally hundreds of highly paid specialists in the v.a. who are not doing the work they are hired to do? are doing thethey work they were hired to do because congress in his wisdom passed a law that set the time was reasonable and necessary. rep. dunn: let me tell you how i think the people in the second congressional district of florida are responding -- i think they are shocked, i think they are dismayed, and i think they are angry. i think they demand we fix a problem like this.

i do not think i can go home and walk the streets and say oh, this is ok. don't worry about that. these hundreds of people, we are paying that much more than you will ever make to do something that is not even serving the v.a. or the veterans. chairman rowe offered some statistics concerning the ballooning v.a. budget and the size of its workforce. i think those speak for themselves. they are shocking numbers. in nine years, we have doubled the budget and added 100,000 employees to the rolls. in the same nine years, i promise you i do not think the v.a. care hasn't moved by any significance, probably just the opposite. am i disappointed? i echo the comments of my colleague about reform. ofhink the v.a. is in need reform, and i think we are here to see that, and i am committed to do that. mr. chairman, i yield back. chair roe: thank the gentleman

for yielding. recognize for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and thank you, mr. cox, for being here. importantur voice is to this discussion and many discussions we cap in the committee. i wanted to ask you, in your testimony, you talked about the disproportionate impact on lower-level employees and the percentage of adverse actions impacting general level employees versus supervisors as remains. thesea. testimony has set two have remained roughly constant before and after the accountability act. data? agree with that do you agree with that discrepancy? factox: i disagree and the that 15 supervisors, when there are tens of thousands of management officials throughout the thv.a., and you are telling the only 15 out of 1096 were

managers that had this is been problems or performance 85 rank andut yet 10 file people were the problem? that seems very disproportionate. i go back to phoenix. let's talk about that. they had horrible incentives. it is in there. we can talk about dva, and i think we have been there many times. rep. brownley: do you, as an organization, collect any data on employee morale? do a survey of such? rep. brownley: more of it is butdotal from our locals, we believe morale is very low because there is a real fear of people losing their union rights, losing the right to representation. there is a great, great fear in

all federal agencies of a politicized civil service workforce, and i think that should scare everyone of us to death. rep. brownley: does the v.a. reach out to you? they testified this morning that they have got a survey out now and expect results in 45 days tom now in terms of trying measure morale in the v.a. does the v.a. reach out to you and say -- can you help us make sure the employees are filling this out? this data is important to you. do they reach out to try, in essence, to get really accurate data? mr. cox: since secretary mcdonnell and secretary shulkin have left, i have not heard a word from the v.a. rep. brownley: thank you. so it is fair to say in this survey, they talked about the results of the radius survey, public information not being very good, and in this

particular survey, they are not reaching out to you. mr. cox: i have not heard anything from them. rep. brownley: also and your testimony, you talk about the whistleblower hotline that is and have made public, you heard reports from employees that it is difficult for them to find the hotline information? mr. cox: yes, ma'am, we have. we requested that information, share it with our membership, and that is how they became aware. after we did that, the v.a. came out. i am happy to say the union contract is the best thing in the world to protect whistleblowers, and then we have got also the special counsel and the i.g. those have done a very good job creating a separate entity, to become somewhat of a fox guarding the hen house. i think on both sides of this soul thatre is not a

wants more bureaucracy, and the want morenot bureaucracy, standing in the way of protection for whistleblowers. rep. brownley: have you requested the v.a. make this whistleblower number of public information? mr. cox: yes, we have. rep. brownley: and the v.a.'s response was? mr. cox: i have not heard from them. rep. brownley: you testified that the v.a. has essentially stopped using employment improvement plans. have you seen this across the v.a.? mr. cox: yes, ma'am, i have. rep. brownley: every facility, and whether it is mid-level, lower-level. mr. cox: i am aware of the rank and file employees. i am not aware of what they do with management. rep. brownley: thanks. i only have a few seconds left. i know one of the issues that afge has struggled with is getting data from the v.a. as to how the accountability act is being implemented.

what additional data has afge requested from v.a. that is still not available yo? mr. cox: i would have to look to my folks, because we have asked for a few things and have gotten little data appeared we want to know gender, we want to deal with grievances that deal with fraud, waste, and abuse, ethnicity, age, all of those things that would show patterns of treating one person different from others. rep. brownley: you are not even sure that the data is being collected. mr. cox: no, i am sure it is being collected. the v.a. collects lots of data. rep. brownley: thank you, sir. chair roe: mr. jason, you are recognized for five minutes. chaffin: thank you. i do not think i've seen a more

passionate union employee. mr. cox: i am a passionate nurse and loved every second of it. bergman: and there is nothing wrong with that. we snobby prounion or antiunion. we should be pro-veteran and pro-v.a. you have testified about the number of employees that have been let go of obviously there is a process by which a v.a. employee is fired, like anywhere supervisors, according to your testimony, sir, and i that you respectfully, number reflects a disparity in your opinion as compared to housekeeping aids, nursing assistants, registered nurses, food service workers, medical support assistance among which are the largest numbers

that have been less go. -- let go. would you agree that is a disparate number? smallx: it seems like a number in proportion to the fact that there are tens of thousands -- rep. higgins: is it your testimony that it seems like it or that it is? mr. cox: sir, because i do not have all of the v.a.'s information -- rep. higgins: certainly an iselligent gentle man who making clear and courageous statement survey, do you think not enough circle supervisors have been fired? mr. cox: i would say that is up wisdom of the committee to make that suggestion. rep. higgins: your personal feelings? mr. cox: my personal feelings -- rep. higgins: are supervisors members of your union? notcox: no, sir, they are

represented by the union. rep. higgins: it seems to me that the goal of the accountability law was to to v.a.ifter action employees regardless of seniority, lack of sin yorty, or position. seems to me that you are stating that the managers in place are abusing the exist in nonfunctional,it that more supervisors should be fired. is that not your statement? is not that your opinion? mr. cox: i think that is how you are interpreting it, sir. rep. higgins: reinterpreted, please. do you think more supervisors should get fired or not? mr. cox: i think they should be held accountable, and it is an accountability law. rep. higgins: if they are held accountable, should there be accountability?

does that sometimes include being fired? mr. cox: yes, sir, with a due process. rep. higgins: the employees who have been fired, have they all not, in their hiring process, their training, their certifications been clarified and documented in the hiring process? whatever their position within received have they not extensive training and certification for their particular job? mr. cox: we would certainly hope so, but i would go back -- rep. higgins: it is a matter of law -- mr. cox: i would go back and look at the director of phoenix -- rep. higgins: it is a matter of law that qualified officials fill these positions. so the lack of a current performance improvement program, what could possibly be presented to an american man or woman that is highly qualified and certified for a position within the v.a., whatever that position is, because veterans and americans are done with the past

performance of the v.a. we demand reform! this committee is committed to making it happen. so what possibly could an employee of the v.a., having been highly trained and certified, regardless of position, why -- if they are found to be negligent in their duties, why would they not be fired? what could they possibly learn from a two week or three week performance improvement program that they did not learn in six months or years of certification and training writer to being hired? -- prior to being hired? mr. cox: sir, part of the issue constantly changes their performance requirement, particularly the dva -- rep. higgins: every american man and woman viewing this hearing today is thinking to themselves -- we bring our standards to work. there is no such thing as menial

labor in my life. there are only menial men and women. it is impossible for a man or woman of standards to performing menial tax, because there is no such thing. is only menial men and women share it in your testimony, you have repeated the mantra that the current law is not working, and may i suggest you that management of the current law is what we need to address. i yield back. chair roe: mr. lamb, you are recognized. could you mr. cox, maybe just explain in a little more detail some of the examples of how and why people are being fired in such large numbers since the implementation of this act? information in your testimony and what we received, it is not so simple as an employee being found negligent in the care of a particular veteran, right? there are often other reasons

that management is using to fire people? mr. cox: that is correct, sir, particularly in vba, the benefit side, they changed performance standards continuously. the answer is to speed up process and the claims faster, even though they are very complicated process. rep. lamb: right. are severalre examples detailed in your testimony where people have been fired after making whistleblower complaints, right? sir, that happened in phoenix and other places that our union had to come to the rescue. rep. lamb: you yourself were a registered nurse at the v.a. for much of your career? mr. cox: 23 years, sir. rep. lamb: during that time, did you have experience seeing other employees in the job going through the performance, through the program? mr. cox: yes, sir, and many of them completed it successfully. i would say a number of them will he do this successfully,

because there was an additional training, understanding that the v.a. is a complex system, but it is still the best health care anyone can get in the country, and thank god that veterans are getting at. rep. lamb: when you hear about a situation like ours where 46 lower-level employees have suffered adverse actions in the last year him and we have 300 vacancies, from your time at the v.a., do you think that increases the day-to-day burden on the employees who are left, the ones who have not been fired? mr. cox: it certainly does, and it also jeopardizes the veterans, particularly the housekeeping aids. while people may consider that a menial task, maybe, they are responsible for cleaning and hospital, onehe of the most important jobs at any hospital. rep. lamb: are you in touch with some of the lower level -- that is not the right term, assistantel," but the food workers, cleaners, are you

in touch with them on a regular basis? mr. cox: yes, sir. i am. rep. lamb: how are they reacting to come in the last six months, see in such a large number being fired at their level in such a small level at the management level? chair roe: there is a fear that it will continue until morale improves and everything is better, and i think we all know that is not the way that you get the best performance. rep. lamb: do you think that helps them do their job to take care of the veterans any better? mr. cox: no. when you have fear in an organization, you never get the best performance, sir. it helps: do you think them do their job and he better for there to be fewer employees, for there to be 46 fewer employees in pittsburgh? mr. cox: no, sir. obviously there needs to be sufficient employees to get the work done. at the end of the day, without

that being accomplished, the veteran suffers. rep. lamb: thank you, mr. chairman, i yield my time. chair roe: thank you, and thank you for being with us for the time, for hanging in there, mr. lamb. mr. cox, no further questions. the second panel is dismissed. everyone has five legislative days to provide remarks. without objection, so ordered. mr. takano? rep. takano: i am pleased there are many in the majority who share the concerns with the minority about there being adequate whistleblower protections and how the oawp is for filling their role there it i think people on both sides of the aisle are greatly concerned about this. i want to take note make areas note, that the fact that i do ask mr. cox a question about how well the v.a. is making good on

its professed statement that they are listening to employees. they departed quite swiftly before mr. cox's testimony, and if that is an indication of how they are listening to uni officials andon union members -- union officials and union members, i cannot see that their statements are very credible. i am troubled by the disappearance of performance improvement plans among rank-and-file employees at the v.a. seethe general -- i could how there could be very credible claims of a culture of fear within this organization. fear that is pervasive. from -- i haves seen a large number of your employees in fired without due

process, without eating able to tell your side of the story, does create a condition of fear, and i am very troubled with how i've seen the implementation of this accountability act go forward. let me just say that there are claims -- that the one place of refuge that the acting secretary with saying well, we are firing about the same number of people. that is not really a great claim to stand on, because this law was intended to improve our ability, and we are talking about the firings. we are not talking about people who were moved and dismissed for we are not talking about turnover in difficult jobs. veterans,king about people who fought for our country, and i think we can do , you know, i am just

amazed at the implementation of this law. i had hoped it would be better. i am still cautiously optimistic with the right values of the top, we can get it right, but i question whether that is offering now. thank you, mr. chairman, and i yield back. chair roe: thank you, gentlemen, for yielding. i think it is a very good hearing. one year, the accountability and whistleblower protection act. it is a great job to make sure whistleblowers are protected, feel comfortable in coming up your mr. lamb, i have been an employer, and was for 30 years in the private medical factor, and when you are short of personnel, you do not fire adequately performing employees, you reward those people to stay there. i would say if i were a manager

at pittsburgh and i had to get rid of somebody and i was already short of personnel, that would have to be something pretty egregious for me to get rid of them. think about that. if you are already sort of people. i know the v.a. is having an issue hiring people -- just like businesses across the country. i think we have a labor shortage in this country to compete for quality talent. v.a. has got to be a place that people want to work. for the record, we can get all hung up in numbers and all of that, and while this discussion was going on, i had a chance to look at the pre-june 1, 2016 to june 22, 2017, before the whistleblower protection act and after, and in the g.s. one through six, the percentage of people terminated, and you have to look at the percentage because the number of employees has gone way up, it is actually 7% to 10%, as mr. cox

suggested, some of those people did need to be terminated. it did go up. and in 11 through 15, it did go up. the only percentage that went down, this is what is reasonable to look at, file 38. here are the facts right here. i really appreciate everyone being here. i think there is a lot of work to be done. this committee is committed on a bipartisan basis to keep an eye on the v.a. i appreciate everyone's attendance and being here. hearing no further comments, the meeting is adjourned. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2018] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

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>> later today, the senate will vote on the confirmation of rubber will be to be president trump's second veterans affairs secretary. to wilkie was nominated replace david shulkin, who was fired in march. watch the senate confirmation vote at 5:30 p.m. eastern on c-span2. >> tonight, on "the communicators," tina pidgeon, for al commissioner broadband company, talks how to make broadband possible for small villages across tundra, glaciers, and mountains. then incoming president for alaska telemedicine and

telehealth, christopher dietrich on providing medicine to remote communities in alaska. watch "the communicators" tonight at 8:00 eastern on announcer: supreme court brett kavanaugh continues to meet with legislators on capitol hill. watch live on c-span. watch any time on c-span.org. or listen with the free c-span radio app. ♪ announcer: this week on "q&a," the daughter of an american diplomat discusses her memoir, "daughter of the cold war." ♪