Labor Day Call to Action: VA Workers over Billionaires

Support Our Veterans Whose Federal Jobs Are in Peril

Photo: AFGE

When 50501 Veterans was first organized earlier this year, the consensus was that our first demand should be:

Reverse Cuts to the Veterans Administration, Fully Fund the Pact Act, and Rehire Fired Employees

This Labor Day, that demand still stands. Although we won the battle to stop the extensive bleeding of staff over the summer, we’re still fighting a war to ensure veterans’ jobs — not just at the VA, but across the federal workforce – are not eliminated just so billionaires can get a bigger tax cut.

This is especially critical at the VA, where more than one in four veterans make up the workforce. Those veterans have not only the skills and expertise that our veterans need when they seek care, but they also have that innate empathy and warrior kinship that comes from serving in the Armed Forces.

So while the public outrage over the proposed gutting of the agency to the tune of 83,000 employees helped stop that carnage of veterans care, earlier this month VA Secretary Doug Jones announced in a disingenuous missive that the agency is terminating collective bargaining agreements for most VA bargaining-unit employees.

Don’t let the business buzzwords of operational efficiency in that BS announcement fool you. The earlier proposed annihilation of 83,000 positions across the agency that outraged the public so much will now be replaced by deaths by 1,000 cuts without the collective bargaining power of a union advocating for VA employees.

And by deaths, we do not just mean the elimination of job positions. Let us be clear: we mean the deaths of veterans.

Because that is exactly what will happen when our veterans cannot access lifesaving care – whether through the veterans suicide crisis line, treatment for toxic exposure guaranteed through the PACT Act, or just everyday care for other life-threatening service-related medical conditions.

This executive order affects 377,000 VA employees currently represented by unions, including the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the National Association of Government Employees, the National Federation of Federal Employees, the National Nurses Organizing Committee/National Nurses United, and the Service Employees Union.

The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents the vast majority of VA’s unionized workforce, clearly identified the true intentions of this move in a statement:

“The real reason Collins wants AFGE out of the VA is because we have successfully fought against disastrous, anti-veteran recommendations from the Asset Infrastructure Review Commission which would have shut down several rural VA hospitals and clinics, opposed the Trump administration’s plan to dismantle veteran health care through the cutting of 83,000 jobs, and consistently educated the American people about how private, for-profit veteran healthcare is more expensive and results in worse outcomes for veterans,” said Everett Kelley, AFGE’s national president. “We don’t apologize for protecting veteran healthcare and will continue to fight for our members and the veterans they care for.”

Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, ranking member of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, called the contract terminations "a cruel and stupid mistake."

"The Trump administration’s move to strip VA and veteran employees of their union bargaining rights is yet another blatant assault against VA's workforce that will damage veterans' care and benefits and weaken accountability and oversight at the department," Blumenthal said

This Labor Day, 50501 Veterans asks all veterans and our allies to stand strong with these VA employees and their unions and once again rally the public to enlist in our fight against these very real threats from within our executive branch to our veteran community. Join a Labor Day march in your community to once again draw attention to this Administration’s efforts to gut the VA, and the greater federal workforce, and throw its veteran employees out on the street.

There are nearly 1,000 Workers’ Labor Day Events across the country to join together, speak out and fight back for what #WorkersDeserve. The AFL-CIO provides a great resource for finding a protest near you:

https://aflcio.org/2025/8/28/find-workers-labor-day-event-near-you

If you don’t find one there, you may also want to check out the easy-to-use Mobilize calendar where you can do a search by location and the keywords Labor Day:

https://www.mobilize.us/

It is time to close ranks behind the VA workers. Let this Administration know in no uncertain terms that it must stop targeting the VA – not just the workforce, but the veterans for whom those workers provide care. We all know that this is just another attempt to move toward privatizing the VA, so billionaires can profit off the pain of our veterans.

We choose our VA #WorkersOverBillionaires. Every day. All day.