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For Immediate Release
March, 05 2025, 05:12pm EDT
Contact:
Cheston McGuire,Phone:,202-639-6453,Email:,cheston.mcguire,@afge.or,g
AFGE President Everett Kelley Outraged Over Veterans Affairs Plan to Fire 83,000 Additional Employees
Largest VA employee union says move will destroy VA ability to fulfill PACT Act promises
Today, in response to a Department of Veterans Affairs memorandum outlining plans to slash 83,000 additional positions, American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) National President Everett Kelley issued the following statement:
“These soon-to-be fired workers are patriotic Americans who chose to work at the VA because they genuinely care for the welfare of veterans and their families. They take to heart the department’s mission 'to care for him who shall have borne the battle…’
“Firing more than 80,000 workers, a third of whom are veteran themselves, will destroy the VA’s ability fulfill the PACT Act’s promises to veterans who either died or became ill as a result of exposure to burn pits, Agent Orange, and other toxic substances. Most of these employees were hired explicitly to provide the benefits provided for in the PACT Act.
“The VA has been severely understaffed for many years, resulting in longer wait times for veterans in need. The DOGE plunder of career VA employees, adding to the illegal mass firings of thousands of probationary employees, can only make matter worse. Veterans and their families will suffer unnecessarily, and the will of Congress will be ignored.
“Until Elon Musk and Donald Trump came on the scene, America never turned its back on our veterans and their families. Their reckless plan to wipe out the VA’s ability to deliver on America’s promise to veterans will backfire on millions of veterans and their families who risked their lives in service for our country.
“On behalf of the 311,000 VA employees AFGE represents, I call on Congress to intervene in these un-American tactics and put a stop to Elon Musk’s DOGE rampage through America’s most cherished agencies in a blatant attempt to justify privatizing government services.”
The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) is the largest federal employee union proudly representing 700,000 federal and D.C. government workers nationwide and overseas. Workers in virtually all functions of government at every federal agency depend upon AFGE for legal representation, legislative advocacy, technical expertise and informational services.
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Unions Ready for 'Righteous Fight' as Sanders, Dems Reintroduce PRO Act
"We know it won't be easy," said the AFL-CIO president. "There's no fight more righteous than ensuring that every single worker who wants a union has a fair shot to join or form one."
Mar 05, 2025
As U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and Congressman Bobby Scott reintroduced the Richard L. Trumka Protecting the Right to Organize Act on Wednesday, labor union leaders prepared to fight for the legislation that would strengthen workers' rights.
While Sanders (I-Vt.) and Scott (D-Va.) have long led the battle for the bill on Capitol Hill, most Democrats in Congress—including both minority leaders—also support the PRO Act, which features a wide range of policies intended to hold companies accountable for violating employees' rights and make it easier for workers to form and negotiate with a union.
"Never before in the history of our nation have income and wealth inequality been greater than today. Workers are falling further and further behind. In response, millions of Americans have expressed their desire to join a union," Sanders said in a statement. "However, the billionaire class is fighting with all its might to put down attempts by workers to exercise their constitutional right to unionize."
The PRO Act's reintroduction comes as U.S. President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk work to gut the federal government while congressional Republicans—who have narrow majorities in both chambers—work to cut healthcare and food assistance programs that serve working-class people to fund tax giveaways for the ultrawealthy and corporations.
"Congress has an urgent responsibility to ensure that workers can join a union and negotiate for higher pay, better benefits, and safer workplaces."
Sanders pointed to Trump's decision "to illegally fire National Labor Relations Board Member Gwynne Wilcox and effectively shut down the NLRB," and warned that "without a functioning NLRB, corporate bosses can illegally fire unionizing workers, flagrantly violate labor laws and render free and fair union elections near impossible."
"Supporting the immediate reinstatement of Member Wilcox and the swift passage of the PRO Act would be major steps toward building real worker power," added the senator, who is the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. "The PRO Act is long overdue and I am proud to be introducing this bill."
Scott also framed the bill as a necessity, saying that "unions are essential for building a strong middle class and improving the lives of workers and families. Regrettably, for too long, workers have suffered from anti-union attacks and toothless labor laws that undermined their right to form a union."
"As union approval remains at record highs, Congress has an urgent responsibility to ensure that workers can join a union and negotiate for higher pay, better benefits, and safer workplaces," he argued. "The PRO Act is the most critical step Congress can take to uplift American workers. I urge my House and Senate colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join me in advancing the most significant update for workers' labor organizing rights in over 80 years."
Labor leaders also called on members of Congress across the political spectrum to back the bill—which largely lacks GOP support, but is co-sponsored by Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.).
"In too many workplaces, in too many industries across the country, big corporations and billionaire CEOs still retaliate against us for organizing," said AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler, who has led the federation since the bill's namesake, Trumka, died in 2021.
"They refuse to negotiate our contracts, force us to sit through hours of anti-union propaganda and engage in illegal union-busting every day," she said of companies and executives. "Now they have an unelected, unaccountable union-buster trying to illegally fire tens of thousands of our fellow workers in federal jobs and an administration rolling back the workplace protections."
Shuler added that "we know it won't be easy, but the labor movement never backs down from a righteous fight. And in today's economy, where our workers' hard-earned paychecks are covering less of what they need while still facing unsafe conditions and a lack of respect on the job, there's no fight more righteous than ensuring that every single worker who wants a union has a fair shot to join or form one."
American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees president Lee Saunders reiterated AFSCME's support for the legislation on Wednesday, calling out billionaires and big business for "anti-union extremism" that "is deepening economic inequality, halting progress on health and safety, and harming millions."
"The PRO Act will loosen billionaires' grip on our economic future and make clear that their days of using illegal union busting tactics without consequence are over," he said. "This legislation will level the playing field, giving workers the legal protections they need to organize without fear of retaliation or obstruction. It's about time Congress prioritized workers over billionaires and gave them a fair shot at improving their workplaces."
Other groups that support the PRO Act include the American Federation of Teachers, Communications Workers of America, International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, National Nurses United, Service Employees International Union, United Autoworkers, and United Steelworkers, among others.
The right to a union means fair wages, benefits, and security—but corporate greed stands in the way," the Laborers' International Union of North America said on social media Wednesday. "The PRO Act fights back! Congress must choose: Stand with working people or bow to Wall Street. The time is now!"
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Critics Ask If Trump and Musk Are 'Intentionally Crashing the Economy'
"If you think back at the last economic crashes... the rich were able to buy up assets on the cheap and emerged even wealthier and more powerful than before," noted one progressive commentator.
Mar 05, 2025
Are U.S. President Donald Trump, top adviser Elon Musk, and allied oligarchs deliberately trying to tank the economy in order to line their own gilded pockets?
More and more observers from both sides of the political aisle are asking the question this week as the U.S. president implemented steep tariffs on some of the country's biggest trade partners, threatened a global trade war, and is taking chainsaw to government spending and programs—policies that, while inflicting economic pain upon nearly everyone else, could dramatically boost their already stratospheric wealth.
Numerous observers have likened it to the " disaster capitalism" examined in Naomi Klein's seminal 2007 book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism—politicians and plutocrats exploit the chaos of natural or human-caused crises to push through unpopular policies like privatization and deregulation that harm the masses while boosting the wealth and power of the ruling class.
Economic alarm bells were already ringing before Trump's 25% tariffs on most products from Canada and Mexico and an additional 10% on China—for a total of 20%—took effect on Tuesday, prompting retaliatory measures and threats of more to come.
Then, during his rambling joint address to Congress on Tuesday night, Trump threatened to impose reciprocal tariffs on every nation on Earth starting April 2 (because he "didn't want to be accused of April Fools' Day") if those countries did not lower barriers to trade with the United States.
@jamellebouie Replying to @C. Stetzer ♬ original sound - b-boy bouiebaisse
New York Times economic policy reporters Alan Rappeport and Ana Swanson called Trump's sweeping tariffs "one of the biggest gambles of his presidency," and a move "that risks undermining the United States economy."
But what if that's the whole point?
"I've been entertaining this theory a little bit more lately, because [Trump's] economic moves seem so stupid and terrible and counterproductive without thinking that he is intentionally trying to cause harm," progressive political commentator Krystal Ball—who also has a degree in economics and is a certified public accountant— said Tuesday on the social media site X.
Ball cited an X
post by Saikat Chakrabarti, a progressive Democrat running for Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) House seat who worked on Wall Street for six years and helped found the online payment processing company Stripe, in which he accused Trump of "manufacturing a recession."
"But it makes sense when you realize his goal is to create something like Russia where the economy is run by a few oligarchs loyal to him," Chakrabarti added. "Creating that state is hard in a large, dynamic, powerful economy with too many actors who can oppose him. So he's accelerating concentrating money and power into the hands of his loyalists while he crashes the rest out."
Responding to this, Ball asserted that "at this point, until proven otherwise, the primary actor in the government and the economy is actually Elon, so I think it makes sense to think of Elon's incentives here and what he may actually want to accomplish."
"If you think back at the last economic crashes—both in Covid and in the 2008 financial crash—while initially everyone suffered, including the rich, out of both, the rich were able to buy up assets on the cheap and emerged even wealthier and more powerful than before," she noted.
"So in 2008, not only did they get their own custom bailout, but they were able to buy housing stock at absurdly low prices," Ball recalled. "The rich got richer than ever, inequality skyrocketed, and the big banks got bigger than ever."
"Same deal with the Covid-era recession," she continued. "So, while again, everyone suffered initially, there was a huge bailout package which, yes, did benefit ordinary people, but if you look at who came out really on top... you could see people like Elon Musk, people like Jeff Bezos, people like Mark Zuckerberg getting far wealthier. Their net worths, which were already very high, skyrocketed beyond anyone's wildest dreams."
Indeed, as Common Dreamsreported, 700 billionaires got $1.7 trillion richer during two years of pandemic. Between March 2020 and April 2022, Musk got 10 times richer, while Zuckerberg's net worth more than tripled and Bezos' grew by nearly $80 billion, according to Forbes.
"Here's the other piece that's worth thinking about as well," Ball added. "Crash and crisis leads to governments and authoritarian leaders claiming more power for themselves. They can use the crisis and the emergency as a justification for taking on extraordinary powers and for taking extraordinary measures... measures that can be custom fit to primarily benefit oligarchs like Elon Musk."
"So I don't know guys, while we're running around here going... 'can't they understand how this is going to be devastating for the economy,' maybe they do understand," she concluded, "and maybe that's kind of the point."
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'Outright Betrayal of Veterans': Fury Over Trump-Musk Plan to Fire 83,000 VA Workers
A House Democrat warned the move "will cripple the very system that millions of veterans rely on, denying them access to lifesaving healthcare, claims processing, and education benefits they've earned."
Mar 05, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk's sweeping effort to gut the federal government includes cutting up to 83,000 jobs at the Department of Veterans Affairs, according to a leaked memo that sparked a furious response on Wednesday.
VA Chief of Staff Christopher Syrek's memo to top staff was first reported by Government Executive late Tuesday.
As the outlet detailed: "The forthcoming cuts will be sweeping and spare no part of the department, Syrek said. He set an initial target of VA's staffing level in fiscal 2019, or 399,000 workers. VA currently employs 482,000 staff—and 459,000 full-time workers—meaning VA plans to slash its workforce by upwards of 83,000 individuals." Over a quarter of department employees are veterans.
"Trump and Musk want to take away veterans' healthcare to pay for massive tax breaks for billionaires. It's a morally bankrupt plan that will prevent those who served our country from getting the care they need."
U.S. House Committee on Veterans' Affairs Chair Mike Bost (R-Ill.) said in a statement that "I have questions about the impact these reductions and discussions could have on the delivery of services," and "I have been in contact with" Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins since the memo leaked. The panel's ranking member, Mark Takano (D-Calif.), was far more critical.
"This deliberate dismantling of VA's workforce by firing an additional 80,000 employees isn't just dangerous—it's an outright betrayal of veterans," said Takano. He warned that a return to the staffing level before the Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics (PACT) Act, 2022 legislation to help those exposed to burn pits, "will cripple the very system that millions of veterans rely on, denying them access to lifesaving healthcare, claims processing, and education benefits they've earned."
Takano called on Bost to "immediately hold a hearing to get answers—because what's happening here isn't just a bureaucratic decision, it's a crisis in the making." He also demanded that Collins "explain how this reckless attack on VA won't have catastrophic consequences for veterans' access to care, benefits, and education."
Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee Ranking Member Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) similarly said that "Congress worked in a bipartisan manner to pass the PACT Act and equip VA with the tools and resources needed to serve more veterans than ever. Since January 20, this administration has launched an all-out assault undermining that progress and attacking the VA workforce and the veterans it serves."
"This memo makes their goal crystal clear: They want to roll back the PACT Act by cutting 80,000 jobs—including 20,000 veterans—while starving VA's ability to meet increased demand in order to justify privatizing VA," Blumenthal continued. "Their plan prioritizes private sector profits over veterans' care, balancing the budget on the backs of those who served. It's a shameful betrayal, and veterans will pay the price for their unforgivable corruption, incompetence, and immorality."
Congressman Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.), an Iraq War veteran, declared on the Musk-owned platform X that "they are trying to destroy the VA. Miss me with your flag waving GOP ads wrapping yourself in my fellow veterans. We're up for this fight."
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) hosted a Wednesday press conference about GOP attacks on veterans. He said that "thousands of veterans across the country have been hurt by the extreme reactions of Donald Trump, the Trump administration, Elon Musk, and MAGA Republicans. It's unacceptable. It's unconscionable. It's un-American."
"And there are several veterans here today to tell their stories to the American people about what is happening and the fact that veterans all across this great country are being harmed," Jeffries explained. "Our promise to veterans and this country is that we will always stand with you."
The Associated Press on Wednesday obtained the memo and spoke with Michael Missal, one of several inspectors general suing over Trump's recent dismissal of the watchdogs. He told the AP that the VA is already suffering from a lack of "expertise" at the top of the agency.
"What's going to happen is VA's not going to perform as well for veterans, and veterans are going to get harmed," warned Missal, who was Blumenthal's guest for Trump's Tuesday address to Congress. The ousted inspector general described the VA as "a really complicated, hard to manage organization," like a big corporation, and defended his work there.
Outrage over the VA's plan to work with the Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to "resize and tailor the workforce to the mission and revised structure," as Syrek put it, reached far beyond members of government.
"Trump and Musk want to take away veterans' healthcare to pay for massive tax breaks for billionaires. It's a morally bankrupt plan that will prevent those who served our country from getting the care they need," said Maurice Mitchell, national director of the Working Families Party. "Every House Republican should be point-blank whether they stand by Trump and Musk’s plan to cut healthcare for our veterans."
The watchdog Accountable.US called the reporting on the memo "damning," while American Federation of Government Employees national president Everett Kelley, stressed that the layoffs "will destroy the VA's ability fulfill the PACT Act's promises to veterans who either died or became ill as a result of exposure to burn pits, Agent Orange, and other toxic substances."
"The VA has been severely understaffed for many years, resulting in longer wait times for veterans in need," the union leader said. "The DOGE plunder of career VA employees, adding to the illegal mass firings of thousands of probationary employees, can only make matters worse. Veterans and their families will suffer unnecessarily, and the will of Congress will be ignored."
On behalf of the 311,000 VA employees his union represents, Kelley urged Congress "to intervene in these un-American tactics and put a stop to Elon Musk's DOGE rampage through America's most cherished agencies in a blatant attempt to justify privatizing government services."
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