Unions, Veterans Protest Cuts to VA

Veterans, hospital staff and supporters rallied Friday against the plan by President Donald Trump‘s administration to make deep cuts to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

More than a hundred protested outside the Clement J. Zablocki VA Medical Center. The agency, which provides health care and benefits to military veterans and their families, is being targeted for deep cuts by the Trump administration and Elon Musk‘s Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE. Speakers lambasted Trump and Musk for going after Veterans Affairs and civil service workers and said cuts worsen health care for veterans.

“They want to do that to capture the federal dollars to give themselves and their billionaire friends another whopping tax break,” said Stephanie Bloomingdale, president of Wisconsin AFL-CIO.

Shortly after taking office, Trump and Musk have made massive cuts to the federal workforce and attempted to block or clawback federal spending. They have defended the actions as an attempt to clean up waste, fraud and abuse in the government. Now, the VA is planning to fire more than 80,000 employees across the country, or approximately 20% of the agency’s staff, according to a report by Government Executive.

“These are the federal workers the public sector workers that make our country right in ways… that go unnoticed until they are not there,” Bloomingdale said, “and then our country will come unglued.”

“Just lie on top of lie on top of lie,” he said.

“A decade ago, 10 years ago, we started sounding the alarm that the VA did not have enough staff to give all the veterans the care they deserve,” said Monica Lueking-David, a Zablocki VA nurse and chapter president for WFNHP Local 5000.

“Back in the seventies, it was a hellhole. It truly was, and that’s why we stopped coming to the VA,” said Mark Foreman, a Vietnam veteran and board member with Veterans For Peace. “It makes it even deeper pain when they’re trying to send us back to the seventies.”

Under President Joe Biden, Congress passed the PACT Act, which provided increased funding for staffing and service provision within the VA. Many see the cuts as rolling back the efforts of the PACT Act. The leaked memo that revealed plans for the deep staffing cuts suggested the agency should return to 2019 staffing levels, which would mean eliminating the jobs.

LuAnn Bird, a former candidate for state representative, is a frequent visitor to the VA. Her husband is a Vietnam veteran who was paralyzed after returning home from the war.

As the Trump administration looks to cut spending in the VA, U.S. Rep Gwen Moore said congressional Republicans are preparing to give the U.S. Department of Defense, a separate agency, “gargantuan amounts of money.”

“But when it comes to funding the veterans, it’s like we’re asking the veterans to hold out a tin cup and beg the government to care for them,” Moore said.

All VA workers, including nursing staff, social workers, housekeepers, food service workers, educators, facilities management, transportation, therapists and supply chain management, among others, “are all essential to providing quality care or our nation’s heroes,” Lueking-David said.

“This is an attack on communities, on workers and on veterans,” Lueking-David said. “We need to save our VA.”