Retired registered nurses who were employed by the Department of Veterans’ Affairs have won a significant victory by restoring equitable pensions for past and present federal employees.

MaryAnn Mackin in Pittsburgh, Penn. and a few other nurses made their first attempt for pension restoration in 1989. The issue was that nurses had been encouraged by VA management to work part-time schedules on unpopular shifts in order to enhance the recruitment and retention of nurses. Nurses who worked permanent part-time evening, night and weekend tours were not informed that in 1980, Congress passed a law, at the request of the DVA, to prorate nurses’ part-time service for retirement purposes. The nurses continued to work unaware that they were the exception to the civil service retirement system and would receive reduced pensions.

The difficult and frequently discouraging work began in earnest with a notification in the April 2001 NARFE magazine by Mackin that she was looking for other affected nurses to work with her. Two retired nurses responded — Debbie McKown from Massachusetts and Sandy Cesnik from Wisconsin — and the Organization for Nurses’ Equity (ONE) was formed. Only by intensive networking and articles in the National Association for Retired Federal Employees could other nurses be located. With 175 VA hospitals in 50 states, it was imperative to enlist as many people as possible to locate the nurses and to contact their legislators in Washington to restore pension equity, so the Family and Friends program began.

A law to restore all the nurses’ full pensions was passed in 2002, sponsored by Jay Rockefeller, chairman of the Senate VA Committee. However, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) interpreted the law to benefit only the nurses still working, not retired nurses. Soon after, Rockefeller lost his chair to the new administration, which refused to clarify the original intent of the law.

Considering the advancing ages of the nurses and that there was no hope for legislative clarification, the nurses hired a constitutional law firm in Pittsburgh, which presented the case to the Merit System Protection Board (MSPB) which protects federal employees’ benefits. In two stages, MSPB, in no uncertain terms, ruled that “of course” the law’s intent was to include retired nurses. Therefore, the government is restoring lost pension income and recalculating future pension income.

If a VA registered nurse worked part-time before 1986, retired before January 23, 2002 and, therefore, has a prorated pension, she or he are encouraged to immediately contact the law firm of Stember, Feinstein, Doyle & Payne at 412-281-8400 in Pittsburgh, Penn. to join the class action suit and apply for a possible full pension restoration.