Legislative Report
NARFE Retirement Life magazine May 2005, p. 12
"Help Wanted: NARFE Looking for Nurses" by Judy Park, Legislative Director
Low wages and poor working conditions coupled with the lure of higher paying jobs with regular hours have created a national shortage of nurses. In a few places is the shortage more acute than in our government's own VA hopsitals. But while the VA is launching a series of incentive and bonuses to lure nurses into federal service, NARFE is trying to locate VA nurses who already have dedicated years of service to providing aid and comfort to millions of the nation's service men and women
We are seeking former VA nurses to help advance and enact "legislation to create equity for Veterans Administration Nurses for work performed before 1986." The objective is to restore retirement equity to a small, but deserving and detrermined bloc of retired nurses who have long been denied the retirement credit promised them when they went to work for the government. The nurses worked long and hard during their careers, but time and again they have been short-changed, first by their employer, then by the U.S. Congress. Since NARFE's 2002 Biennial National Convention, the nurses' fight for full promised retirement benefits has been part of the Association's Legislative Program.
A Bit of Background
Before 1986, the Veterans Administration promised nurses, and certain other health care worker, full-time retirement credit for part-time work if they agreed to work unpopular tours of duty, such as nights and weekends. The incentive helped with the nrusing shortage and aided in the VA;s recruitment and retention of nurses. Then just before the 1986 Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA) provided all other federal workers with full-time retirement credit for pre-1986 part-time work, the VA succeeded in having some of its health care workeers excluded from the bill. This resulted in many nurses losing the full retirement credit they had been promised for their part-time service.
Several years ago, a group of workng and retired VA nurses organized a grass-roots campaign to get the promised retirement beneftis restored. Their efforts resulted in enactment of the Department of Veterans' Affairs Health Care Programs Enhancement Act of 2001 (PL 107-135), on January 23, 2002. The new law was hailed for restoring equity to the nurses and other health care workers in the VA by granting them the full-tme retirement credit they have been promised when hired. However, the wording of the new law was such that when regulations were issued, the credit restoration applied only to affected individuals who retired after the law's enactment. That left VA nurses who had retired between April 6, 1986, COBRA denial of credit and the Janurary 23, 2002 correction law still suffering from the broken promise and reduced annutiies of the past.
When it was discovered that the retiremnt equity feature of the PL 107-135 only applied to VA nurses who retired after the law's enactment, new bills were introduced to extend the relief to those who had already retired, but this retroactive relief was lost in last minute controversies of a larger measure at the end of the 107th Congress. Again in the 108th congress, this group of dedicated former health care providers was successful in have bills introduced in both the House and Senate to "fix" the law so that an estimated 1,500 nurses who retired between April 1986 and January 23, 2002, would receive the full credit they were promised. Retired VA nurses live on significatntly less money in their VA annuities than they had expected, as the result of the reduction in promised pension income that was not imposed on others.
All for ONE
A cadre of affected VA nurses who receive reduced pensions has formed the Organization for Nurses Equality (ONE) and established a Web site that provides information. about their "grass-roots" campaign to restore full annuities.
NARFE members are urged to spread the word to all other VA nurses, notifying them of the need to enact correcting legislation on behalf of their former colleagues- or perhaps themselves. Background information on the issue can be found on NARFE's Web site, www.narfe.org, under Legislation Issues/Position Papers. Or go to
www. oocities.com/varnpension for additonal information and for contacting the network of nurse activists who are spear-heading this effort. Anyone who is, or may know, a VA nurse is asked to provide the contact information to NARFE's Legislative Department at leg@narfe.org, or by mail, so that we may pass the information on to ONE. While few are affected by this inequity, all should work to have it corrected.