Russell Schneider, whose dad was a veteran, has worked as a carpenter at the Zablocki Veterans’ Administration Medical Center in Milwaukee for over 40 years.
“I know how critical the VA is,” Schneider said. “It’s personal for me, and it’s personal for every worker here today.”
Schneider, a member of the Service Employees International Union of Wisconsin, gathered with more than 100 labor leaders and staff of the Zablocki VA Medical Center Friday afternoon to call out the recent firings of federal employees who work for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
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Over 1,400 employees have been laid off by the Department of Veterans Affairs in recent weeks, including 10 employees who were recently fired at the Milwaukee facility.
More cuts could be coming — an internal memo obtained by the Associated Press found that over 80,000 jobs could soon be cut from the department.
The layoffs come as President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency have been pushing to shrink the size of the federal government and workforce in recent weeks.
“We see administrations come and go, but what we’re facing right now is different,” Schneider said at the rally. “The uncertainty, the lack of transparency and these damaging cuts are a serious threat to our veterans’ care and our workforce ability to continue providing that care.”
James Stancil, a former supply technician at the hospital in Milwaukee, was one of the 10 employees who was recently fired there. The 61-year-old veteran served in the Army from 1985 to 1989 and had been working at Zablocki for nearly a year.
Friday, he was outside of the facility, just a few hundred feet away from where he would walk into work most mornings.
“It’s a great place to be and to be thrown out, not by them, not by this facility, but by Donald Trump and Elon Musk … I mean, they don’t know me, they don’t know anybody here,” Stancil said.
LuAnn Bird, who ran for state office as a Democrat last year, said her husband Phil has been treated by staff at Zablocki several times in the past few years. Phil, 79, is a Vietnam War veteran who served from 1965 to 1967.
Bird said her husband is currently bedbound, but he’s used numerous services at Zablocki, including physical therapy and recreational therapy. Bird said he’s also in a pain management program due to chronic pain from an injury.
“The support the VA [Zablocki] gives, there’s no way they can continue these services if they make those cuts that they’re planning,” Bird said. “There’s just no way. And I’m worried about that.”
“I just couldn’t make it without them,” she added.
The hospital serves around 62,000 veterans a year, according to Monica Luecking-David, a nurse at the facility and the chapter president of the Wisconsin Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals.
“Quality health care is a critical need for our veterans,” Luecking-David said during the rally.
Luecking-David said nurses at the hospital are already dealing with staff shortages and many nurses are “stressed” and “burnt out.”
More than 2,000 people work at Zablocki, according to Michele Malone, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 3.
“None of us are disposable,” Luecking-David said about the staff. “The VA’s mission could not be achieved without each and every one of us.”
Nearly 11,000 federal employees work for the VA in Wisconsin, but it’s unclear how many have been affected by the recent cuts. There are VA Medical Centers in Milwaukee, Madison and Tomah in Wisconsin. The VA also operates 16 outpatient clinics in the state.
A spokesperson for the Department of Veterans Affairs in Wisconsin didn’t respond to a reporter’s request for comment for this story.
There are around 331,000 veterans who call Wisconsin home, according to a 2022 University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee report.
Wisconsin joins lawsuit against Trump administration
A Friday statement from the office of Gov. Tony Evers said Wisconsin is joining a multi-state lawsuit against asking a federal court for a restraining order to stop the mass firing of probationary federal employees and for workers to be reinstated.
In the statement, Evers said the firing of federal workers, including of veterans is, “wrong, illegal, and bad for our state and our country.”
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