‘Middle Finger’ to Veterans
Trump’s new VA secretary is a bigger threat to veterans’ care than Elon Musk.
A ‘Middle Finger’ to Vets – The American Prospect,
Suzanne Gordon and George Early
In a scene that has become familiar in Washington these days, angry federal workers and concerned members of Congress gathered outside a government office to protest the latest depredations of the “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) created by President Trump.
On February 13, the venue of the day was the Vermont Avenue headquarters of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), an agency with the second-largest workforce and third-largest budget in the federal government.
The Senate Democrats who rallied, in person or via press release, to “Protect Our Veterans” trained their fire on the evil meddling of the billionaire boss from Tesla, SpaceX, and X, the social media site previously known as Twitter.
In her statement of support, Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) warned that Musk and his crew were accessing data that included personal information about VA patients, which is supposed to be safeguarded by the secretary of veterans affairs. “Veterans risked their lives to defend our country,” Murray said. “And they deserve better than to have an unelected billionaire reviewing their medical records, targeting the benefits they have earned, or using their private information for personal gain.”
More from Suzanne Gordon | Steve Early
To loud applause from embattled VA workers, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), the ranking member of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee (SVAC), blasted DOGE’s data breach at the VA with a vehemence worthy of Bernie Sanders, his fiery SVAC colleague from Vermont.
“We’re going to fight Elon Musk’s plans to slash and trash the VA in the biggest power grab and heist of valuable information and money in our nation’s history,” Blumenthal declared.
Blumenthal—who happens to be the richest member of the U.S. Senate—warned the richest man in the world that “nine million veterans are watching you give them the middle finger and we’re not going to stand for it!”
Who’s Trashing What?
Any support by Democrats on Capitol Hill for a protest by federal workers against service cuts is a welcome development. But rally rhetoric is not the most reliable guide to how putative allies will address VA problems that are bigger than DOGE data breaches. Long term, Elon Musk isn’t the only threat to the agency’s functioning.
People who want to protect veterans over the next four years must also confront Doug Collins, the conservative Republican confirmed earlier this month as VA secretary. Although criticized by Murray, who opposed his nomination, the former congressman from Georgia was barely mentioned at the mid-February rally outside his new office—by speakers like Blumenthal, Maggie Hassan (D-NH), and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN). All were among the 22 Senate Democrats voting for Collins two weeks before, with the Republican majority.
If left unchallenged by VA patients and caregivers, veterans’ organizations, and members of Congress, Trump’s appointee will continue to slash and trash services for veterans long after Elon Musk has likely returned to the private sector.
On the same day that protesters assembled outside his new office, Collins dismissed 1,000 probationary employees at the VA, while claiming that this move “will not negatively impact VA healthcare, benefits, or beneficiaries.”
In a quick rebuttal to Collins, Murray pointed out that those laid off included staffers working on treatments for vets with cancer, respiratory problems, missing limbs, and opioid addiction. “I’m hearing from longtime VA researchers in my home state of Washington who are right now being told to immediately stop their research and pack their bags,” Murray told the press.
In the month since Trump took over, his government-wide hiring freeze has further exacerbated staffing shortages at both the VA-run Veterans Health Administration (VHA), which provides health care, and the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA), which processes disability claims for service-related conditions, like burn pit exposure.
When that freeze was first announced, the VA even rescinded all pending “firm offers” to newly hired staff members, including some who had already quit their previous jobs and relocated to begin work at the VA. Even though the agency, after objections from members of Congress, rescinded the rescission, it will now have more difficulty attracting job applications from health care professionals who fear that future mass dismissals of probationary employees may also include people in what the VA calls “mission critical positions.”
Anyone considering VA employment will see comments like this one posted on the Veterans Affairs subreddit by a now-unemployed suicide prevention specialist:
“I am absolutely devastated. Last night, myself and many others at the Veterans Crisis Line were terminated without warning via an email sent after hours, due to actions by the Trump administration. Nobody, including leadership, had any idea this was coming. This decision not only deeply affects me and my family but will also negatively impact Veterans who rely on this service.”
It is unclear how many VA staffers were among the 75,000 workers who accepted Elon Musk’s now infamous “Fork in the Road” buyout offer before its February 12 expiration. But among them will certainly be other employees who have worked remotely since the pandemic and don’t want to resume long and costly commuting.
One such worker, who helps coordinate care for VA patients in already short-staffed facilities in Nevada, Alaska, Hawaii, and Guam, told us: “The pending return to work requirement will have a profound and widespread impact on veterans, especially in rural areas.” One regional VA leader, who understandably chose to remain anonymous, told the Prospect that the ban on remote work is impossible to actually implement. Because of Congress’s long-standing failure to allocate funding needed to maintain or improve facility infrastructure, there is no place to put employees who previously worked from home. “You can’t put six psychologists or appointment schedulers in the same room and ask them to do jobs that involve having private conversations with veterans.” This means, the VA leader said, that people will have to keep working remotely and risk being fired.
Union leaders have also told the Prospect that many mental health professionals are now quitting. They have been worn down by Biden-era workplace policies that, as previously reported in the Prospect, increased their workloads. Mark Smith, a VA occupational therapist and president of National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE) Local 1 in Northern California, explained that these new Trump/Collins attacks are pushing them out the door.
The combined job attrition from all the above—plus even more workers motivated to leave the VA due to increased workloads created by understaffing—will, of course, help Secretary Collins continue to demonstrate his fealty to DOGE’s “workforce organization initiative.” The latter’s stated goal is to allow only one federal employee to be hired for every four who depart.
On February 15, Rep. Mark Takano, the ranking member of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, and nine other Democrats on HVAC sent a letter to Collins strongly objecting to his “celebratory statement regarding the mass firing” announced two days before. They noted that not only were “critical medical researchers” summarily terminated but also “100% service-connected disabled veterans and military spouses.” (About 100,000 former service members work for the VA.)
The SVAC members in the Senate minority demanded detailed information from Collins on the roles, veteran status, and past performance reviews of all probationary employees sacked before they could become part of a union bargaining unit, giving them due process rights.
In Atlanta, Army veteran Nelson Feliz Sr. was reportedly fired despite having been a VA employee for more than 12 years. He recently started a new position but had not completed the required probationary period for it. The “Notice of Termination” that he received, via email, stated that “the agency finds, based on your performance, you have not demonstrated that your further employment would be in the public interest.”
Feliz reacted with shock and amazement at the action taken by the former military chaplain from Georgia who now heads the VA. “We’ve been betrayed,” he told Channel 2 News in Atlanta. “I was a first sergeant. My job was to take care of troops, making sure they were paid, fed, and slept. Why is this happening to us? I’ve been here too long for this to be happening.”
VA union members participating, along with other federal employees, in a nationwide day of action on February 19 plan to highlight the connection between mass layoffs and service cuts. In many cities, they will be organizing displays of workplace solidarity and, in cities like San Francisco, then staging after-work protests at local Tesla dealers.
The mood among 39,000 VA employees in California is grim, as one of their supervisors informed The Sacramento Bee: “People are angry at the administration, people are worried, people are grim. Every day is chaos.” Yet many workers are responding by seeking union protection and, if already a member, becoming more active, NFFE’s Mark Smith reports.
The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) announced earlier this month that its ranks had surged to an all-time high of 321,000. New members are signing, the union said, “to have a voice at work and fight efforts to undermine the federal government and democracy.”
At his SVAC confirmation hearing last month, Secretary Collins mollified his few skeptical questioners (and even won the confirmation vote of VA privatization foe Bernie Sanders) by assuring his former Capitol Hill colleagues that he personally would always “take care of our veterans.”
That pledge was not and is not consistent with the broader Trump administration agenda that has unfolded since January 20. Let’s hope that the stirrings of labor militancy within the VA and other federal agencies will spread to veterans’ organizations as well, which need a similar rank-and-file response to the wake-up call they just received from Secretary Collins.