Fed workers fight Trump’s cuts to veterans

Chicago, IL – Health care workers and veterans have been protesting at VA Hospitals across the country as President Donald Trump and his multibillionaire sidekick Elon Musk attempt to gut healthcare for veterans. Union members who work at VA Hospitals have been in the forefront of the fight to save veteran benefits.

VA hospitals were amongst the hardest hit by the firing of tens of thousands of federal workers. “We love our veterans,” Aimee Potter of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) told a February 26 rally outside the Jesse Brown VA Hospital in Chicago. “We are here to support them.”

U.S. military veterans have historically been given preference in hiring at the Department of Veterans Affairs. Despite this, Trump has already fired an estimated 6000 veterans in his first weeks in office. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs recently announced plans to cut 80,000 more jobs. Many of these jobs are held by veterans.

Pat Kearns is a registered nurse at the Iowa City VA and president of AFGE Local 2547. Appearing on the Fight Back! Radio podcast, Kearns noted, “Our patients are pretty fiercely loyal to us. Everybody at least has to give lip service, even in the Republican Party, to the fact that veterans deserve healthcare. And so I think it’s death by a thousand cuts rather than one firing of half the employees in one fell swoop. The VA’s been underfunded for a number of years. You don’t have to kick it very hard to tip it.”

Workers and unions are not taking this lying down. Unions, including AFGE, have taken the Trump administration to court to block these illegal terminations. So far, many of the unions’ efforts have been successful.

Encouraged by the AFL-CIO, workers, including veterans, have been holding hearings to tell their stories. The Chicago Federation of Labor and the Jobs with Justice Workers Rights Board held such a hearing in Chicago, March 10, where VA social worker Denise Mercherson testified, ”The VA is the biggest employer of social workers in the country. We have 9.1 million veterans in the VA system. Are you aware of the number of homeless veterans? But we have closed the gap due not only to the social workers, but the VA healthcare system.”

The DOGE attack on the federal work force puts veterans, who make up 30% of the federal workforce serving in every department, directly in the crosshairs. But it is more than an attack on veterans, it is an attack on the working class.

Business and government’s all-out attack on unions over the last 50 years has reduced union membership in the private sector to 6.7% of the workforce. This is compared to a total union membership of 35% of the workforce in 1954. Currently half of all union members are in the public sector. Rather than rebuild worker power, Trump seeks to destroy it through attacks on the public sector workers and unions.

This was evident to Aimee Potter at the rally as she told the crowd, “We need solidarity and collective action. Democracy as we once knew it is no longer!”

Workers across the country will be joining immigrants and others under attack to march for justice on May Day, International Workers Day.

Richard Berg is the host of the Fight Back! Radio podcast. The current episode features President Pat Kearns of AFGE Local 2547

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