VA, union at odds over laundry privatization

A federal labor union is once again clashing with the Veterans Affairs Department over dirty laundry.

The American Federation of Government Employees told the agency earlier this month that its decision to outsource operations at a laundry facility violated a prohibition against using VA money to pay for job competitions.

"This letter is sent to demand respectfully that you cease and desist your contracting out of government services based upon studies paid for with funds appropriated for the VA under the appropriation accounts for medical care, medical and protective research, and medical administrative, and miscellaneous operating expenses," AFGE President John Gage said in a May 6 letter that threatened legal action.

In February, VA told the local union that a Pittsburgh laundry plant would be closed in fiscal 2006, and the work performed at the facility would be outsourced to a private firm. According to the union, the plant currently employees 44 people, including 37 veterans and 11 disabled workers.

VA officials had determined that if the laundry operation was to remain in-house, the agency would need to build a new facility. Terry Jemison, a VA spokesman, said while the VA is prohibited from spending money on cost comparisons between in-house and private sector organizations for work at the agency, its actions did not fall into that category. Rather, he said, the VA simply made a "business decision" that was "based on capital and construction costs and the knowledge that commercial sources of competitive laundry production and linen management services were available."

Jemison said the employees who currently work at the facility will be retrained, reassigned or offered buyouts.

"VA employees …shouldn't be thrown out of work just because privatization is easier for management than buying and installing new equipment," said Jacque Simon, director of the American Federation of Government Employees' public policy department.

Roger Cocivera, president of the Textile Rental Services Association of America, an industry group based in Alexandria, Va., said privatizing the Pittsburgh facility will save the government money. "We really feel it would be in the government's best interest to outsource it and to put it out for bid. To build a brand-new laundry would cost millions and millions of dollars," he said.

Cocivera said he knew of several large facilities in the Pittsburgh area that could do the work for the VA. "I don't know of any VA hospital laundry that's as efficient" as the organization's members' plants, he said. He added that many of his members' plants are unionized.

The outsourcing of laundry services has long been controversial for Veterans Affairs. The laundry operations often serve not only VA medical centers, but other nearby government facilities. In 2003, the agency stopped job competitions at 59 laundry facilities after the competitions were already under way.

The Capital Asset Realignment for Enhanced Services Commission, an independent organization that advised Veterans Affairs, released a report in February 2004 in which it described a VA laundry facility in Kerrville, Texas, that generated money for the facility. The report recommended maintaining the facility for the benefit of local employment.

But Jemison said that in the case of the Pittsburgh facility, "making a decision to invest large sums of limited capital resources for a new laundry did not make good business sense. These limited capital recourses could be better utilized for medical equipment or redirected to patient care services," he said.

Simon countered that the agency would save even more money by investing in new facilities and keeping the work in-house. "Privatization of VA laundry is a crystal-clear case of wasting money that should be spent on patient care," she said.