The Oscar G. Johnson VA Medical Center in Iron Mountain. (Betsy Bloom/Daily News file photo)

Collective bargaining agreements for most Department of Veterans Affairs union employees are being terminated, a move the VA says is in response to an executive order President Donald Trump signed in March that excludes certain federal agencies from labor-management relations programs.

In a news release, VA Secretary Doug Collins said it will make it easier for leaders to promote high-performing employees, hold poor performers accountable, and improve benefits and services to America’s veterans.

The move has prompted rebukes from labor leaders and others, including VA nurses who say it’s an attempt to silence them.

The VA on Wednesday notified these unions that, effective immediately, their contracts with VA have been terminated for most bargaining-unit employees: American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO; National Association of Government Employees; National Federation of Federal Employees; National Nurses Organizing Committee/National Nurses United; and the Service Employees International Union.

Contracts covering roughly 4,000 VA police officers, firefighters or security guards represented by these unions will remain in place, as those occupations are exempt from the executive order.

“Too often, unions that represent VA employees fight against the best interests of veterans while protecting and rewarding bad workers,” Collins said in the news release. “We’re making sure VA resources and employees are singularly focused on the job we were sent here to do: providing top-notch care and service to those who wore the uniform.”

AFGE, which represents 320,000 employees at the agency, said it is assessing its options to challenge Collins’ move.

“Secretary Collins’ decision to rip up the negotiated union contract for the majority of its workforce is another clear example of retaliation against AFGE members for speaking out against the illegal, anti-worker and anti-veteran policies of this administration,” AFGE National President Everett Kelley said in a statement.

The Dickinson County Democratic Party plans to have a protest march at 2 p.m. today across the street from the Oscar G. Johnson VA Medical Center in Iron Mountain. Michigan Democratic Party Chair Curtis Hertel was among those expected to attend.

In a news release Friday, the party said AFGE Union Local 2280 has been evicted from the VA campus and is no longer able to represent the bargaining unit.

Those losing their representation by AFGE and several other unions include nurses, doctors, housekeepers, maintenance, food service workers, lawyers, mental health specialists, cemetery workers and others, AFGE told CNN.

NNU, meanwhile, said it will “continue to pursue legal action with our fellow unions.”

“We know this administration is hellbent on silencing nurses and other VA workers to steamroll the destruction of the VA,” the nurses’ union said in a statement to CNN. “It is because of VA nurses’ ability to speak up about patient safety through our union that our nation’s veterans receive the highest level of care.”

According to the VA statement, with no collective bargaining obligations VA staff will spend more time with veterans and facilities will no longer have to host unions. Nationwide, more than 187,000 square feet of VA’s office and clinical space is currently being used by union representatives free of charge, the VA said.

The VA’s action comes after a federal appeals court in California lifted a lower court’s preliminary injunction that had blocked several federal agencies from canceling certain union contracts. Trump’s executive order applies to more than a million federal workers in agencies that include the departments of State, Defense, Justice and Health and Human Services.

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Jim Anderson can be reached at 906-774-2772, ext. 85226, or janderson@ironmountaindailynews.com.