About 80% of VA's roughly 450,000 employees are union members, but the department will no longer honor its contracts with the bargaining units.
The incoming VA Inspector General, Cheryl Mason, worked for several months alongside the senior VA leaders she will now be charged with investigating.
The combat-wounded veteran and former Senate hopeful will oversee operations at hundreds of VA cemeteries and memorial sites.
More than 17,000 Veterans Affairs jobs have been eliminated or vacated since the start of the year.
