Dear Editor,
Your recent editorial “America’s veterans deserve better care than government unions provide” raises important questions about how Congress and federal agencies manage labor relations at the Department of Veterans Affairs. Veterans deserve protection, and federal employees serving them should meet high-performance standards. These issues underscore the need for accuracy about how accountability works within the federal labor system.
As an organization of neutral arbitrators, the National Academy of Arbitrators (NAA) wishes to clarify the role arbitration plays in federal employment disputes. Arbitration is not a political process, nor a vehicle to advance the interests of any party. Arbitrators are bound by the negotiated contract between the agency and the employees’ representative. They cannot impose their personal moral preferences or policy views or bow to public sentiment. They apply the evidence presented and the terms both sides accepted when they signed the agreement.
As construed by the editorial board, the Kansas City case illustrates a common misunderstanding about arbitration. The board seems to assume that an arbitrator can create disciplinary steps when a contract does not specify them. Federal labor arbitration operates within the bounds of the collective bargaining agreement and ensures the process complies with congressionally established procedures. An Arbitrator cannot add to or subtract from a contract that has been agreed to by the parties. There are thousands of awards issued under these contracts, and you can always find one that is unusual or appears to be wrongly decided. This single case, as described in the editorial, does not reflect the broader practices of federal arbitration.
Executive Order 14251, issued in March 2025, limited certain collective bargaining and grievance rights for federal employees, including those at the VA. In response, the NAA filed an amicus brief to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit offering perspective on how federal arbitration primarily addresses routine workplace issues like discipline and contract disputes and does not obstruct accountability or managerial action. Arbitration provides employees and agencies with an efficient process for resolving disputes. In 2024, federal courts had more than 1,300 employment cases pending for three years or longer. By contrast, employment arbitration typically concludes in about 14.8 months, providing faster, less costly, and fair resolution while upholding the contract’s terms.
Readers deserve to understand that arbitrators enforce the system Congress created; they do not shield misconduct. If contract terms no longer serve the public interest, the remedy is renegotiation or statutory changes — not assuming that arbitration itself blocks accountability.
Joshua M. Javits
Washington, DC
President, National Academy of Arbitrators