Unions and advocacy groups protest veteran job cuts, warn of downstream impacts

Updated at 11:40 a.m. ET June 10 

Shernice Mundell, an Air Force veteran who spent many years in the private sector, decided to take a “leap of faith” in August 2024 to become a healthcare and insurance specialist at the Office of Personnel Management. She lost her new job in February, however, as the Trump administration sought to cut the size of the federal workforce. 

Mundell, who is considering running for office, told a crowd of hundreds of veterans and their supporters who had assembled Friday on the National Mall to protest staffing cuts at the Veterans Affairs Department that she has run the gamut of emotions and frustration as her government employment seemingly twisted in the wind.  

“The last 3.5 months have been a roller coaster ride. Whiplash. I’ve been fired, rehired, brought back on admin leave with pay — now I’m on leave without pay,” she said. “I have gone through all the stages of grief. Right now, I’m p—- off.” 

VA Secretary Doug Collins has proposed cutting around 80,000 employees, about 15%, from the agency’s workforce, which would bring it to fiscal 2019 levels. The department also has fired 2,400 probationary workers. 

Everett Kelley, an Army veteran and national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, in his speech emphasized that veterans make up a sizable percentage of employees for the federal government and VA specifically. 

“The VA is a place of veterans, by veterans, for veterans; however, these mass reorganization plans that stand before us today are a targeted attack on veteran jobs, health care, benefits and union rights,” he said to those assembled. 

Irma Westmoreland, a registered nurse at a VA in Georgia and secretary-treasurer of the union National Nurses United, predicted staffing cuts would force nurses to perform non-medical tasks like managing supplies and said frontline employees aren’t being consulted on the changes. 

“These decisions are being made at the atmospheric level. The staff that do the work know best where things can be improved and streamlined, and I say ask them,” she said. “[Secretary Collins] says no mission-critical positions will be cut, but let me tell you: all positions in the VA are mission critical.” 

VA Press Secretary Peter Kasperowicz said in a statement to Government Executive that President Joe Biden's administration let issues fester in the department.

"Imagine how much better off veterans would be if VA’s critics cared as much about fixing the department as they do about protecting its broken bureaucracy," he said. "The Biden administration’s VA failed to address nearly all of the department’s most serious problems, such as rising health care wait times, growing backlogs of veterans waiting for disability compensation and major issues with survivor benefits."

One protestor, a Homeland Security Department employee and Army veteran who asked not to be named, said he decided to attend Friday’s rally because the union has helped him navigate Trump’s government overhauls while he characterized his agency’s leadership as exhibiting a “grim silence.” But he also noted that staff cuts at the VA would directly affect him.

“I use the VA,” he said. “If they’re going to cut people, benefits are going to go down, medical is going to go down, everything is going to roll down hill.” 

This story has been updated with a statement from the VA.