FOR RELEASE:  November 4, 2002

LEGAL PROTECTIONS AND BENEFITS FOR VETS EVAPORATE UNDER BUSH ADMINISTRATION

Washington, DC – Calling on President Bush to vigorously enforce existing federal employment protections for veterans, including service-disabled veterans, Congressman Lane Evans (D-IL) today said the Administration’s record on veterans’ employment issues is “simply shameful.”  A week from today the President will call on all Americans to honor the men and women who have served our Nation in uniform, Evans said referring to Veterans Day.  “But our veterans deserve and have earned unqualified support from the Bush Administration for more than just one day a year,” Evans continued.  “The Bush Administration should actively enforce existing employment protections for veterans and service-disabled veterans; but instead, those protections are being undermined by complacency regarding possible violations of the employment rights and benefits of America’s veterans and disabled veterans.” 

Evans said the Bush Administration is failing to recognize, investigate, or act when veterans’ rights and protections guaranteed by law are threatened.  “For example,” Evans reported, “There are two disabled veterans who work for the U.S. Forest Service in Oregon who are now watching their rights in law undermined by an alternative management system approved by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).”  Evans recalls his part in a bi-partisan effort in the early 1990s to eliminate or to reduce the impact of the so-called “designer RIFs,” which implemented Reductions in Force (RIF) by targeting veterans and disabled veterans or other classes of employees. 

Facing the elimination of their jobs, the two Oregon disabled veterans sought help from the Department of Labor’s (DOL) Veterans Employment and Training Service (VETS), a Federal agency required to investigate this type of employment complaint.  Initially, these veterans were told by DOL that their case had merit.  But later, after “close evaluation” and likely consultation with OPM and the Forest Service, the DOL agency reversed its position.  In an effort to justify its action and program authority, the Forest Service cited a case to the DOL investigators that actually was dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.   

“Where the goal is the same between two parallel systems, the alternative system – while launched with the laudable goal of limiting the adverse impact of reductions on the workforce – must consider and use the same protocols as the law requires.” says Evans.  In one case, disabled veterans are singled-out for transfer or forced separation or retirement by a system that refers to disabled veterans “encumbering” the pool of affected positions.  In the system established by law, these veterans would have protections to prohibit many of those actions.  Evans believes the disabled veterans should be no worse off under the alternative system then the law requires – but here, they clearly are. 

In an October 21, 2002, letter Evans asked the Chief of the Forest Service to hold the personnel actions in abeyance.  The Forest Service unit seeking to take actions detrimental to its veterans employees is part of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) human resources demonstration project.  OPM Director Kay Coles James assured Evans in her response to his September 11, 2002, letter on this matter that, for this Demonstration Project, “Veterans’ preference was not waived.”  Yet, the management flexibility demonstration project that OPM oversees clearly permits veterans to be targeted and forced into a box with no good options.  The Forest Service has been asked to provide their justification for the alternative system, but has not yet responded.   

 “All of the evidence points to an unfair and probably illegal action against disabled veterans – VETS has a mission and an obligation to investigate and protect our veterans’ rights.  Initially, VETS recognized that this case had merit until the ‘Big Dogs’ began to snarl.”  Do management flexibility initiatives let those in power capriciously ignore the law?  Evans maintains that any demonstration project which replaces statutory Reduction in Force protocols must assure that those protected under RIF be no worse off because of the alternative system.  VETS has failed to do its job, Evans said.

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