Through things like tax breaks for employers, the Obama Administration is trying to create thousands of new jobs for thousands of new U.S veterans returning from Afghanistan and Iraq. But, has the one federal agency you might expect to hire the most veterans, the Veterans Administration (VA), gone AWOL on this mission?
The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) says that instead of hiring veterans for jobs traditionally held be veterans such as caring for military cemeteries and processing benefit claims, the VA has been outsourcing the jobs to private contractors.
According to AFGE, many of the entry level jobs being outsourced by the VA are the very jobs veterans returning from combat deployment depend on to help them transition back into civilian life.
AFGE contends that the VA's outsourcing practices, which began and thrived during the George W. Bush Administration, continue and have become even more prevalent under the Obama Administration.
"Recently, the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) entered into a $54 million, three-year contract with ACS Government Systems, a major contractor in the federal sector, for claims processing work currently performed by large numbers of veterans," stated the AFGE in a press release. "To add insult to injury, the VBA employees are being asked to volunteer to train the contractors to do their work."
In addition to taking away current and potential jobs for veterans, AFGE warns that outsourcing VA benefit processing could place veterans at risk of identity theft.
"We all know who is hurt the most by these growing outsourcing practices," said AFGE National President John Gage, "It's the veteran on the receiving end of the agency's services. Contract claims processors working for profit will now handle the most personal information of our veterans."
Also See:
Getting Veterans Back to Work
GAO says VA Under Serving Homeless Women Veterans
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Photo: Job Fair for US Veterans -- John Moore/Getty Images
Comments
Although outsourcing has a negative connotation, perhaps this will actually help disabled vets who are waiting an average of 15 months for VBA to process their claims, often sending claims out of the county to workers in places such as the Philippines to be processed. How frustrating it was for a relative of mine to have his claim delayed by such practices. And for the VBA to treat veterans in this matter by not providing a speedy process to handle claims. If this proposed change works, more power to them. The workers they have processing claims now are not the best trained, by the way, and in many instances have been responsible for unnecessary delays in handling claims, e.g., if they can’t figure it out, it sits on their desks instead of being handed off to someone who can.
@ Birdgirl123: A very valid point. The VA admits that more than 60 percent of claims for compensation and pension filed by veterans are currently taking more than 125 days – over 4 months – to process. In their 2013 budget request, the VA stated that they hope to reduce that rate to “only” 40 percent by the end of 2013.
Robert Longley
The VA has been AWOL for a long time as far as hiring a Veteran is concerned. I tried for 5 years to get a job at the VA and a non-veteran has always gotten the job. Now if you look and listen to the employes at the VA you will find that a lot of them do not speak English or spanish or one of the Asian languages. What you will hear is languages from the middle east.