Veterans Affairs workers, including 2,000 in Philly, are losing union protections. They call it ‘retaliation.’

The Department of Veterans Affairs terminated contracts for most bargaining-unit workers Wednesday, a move regional union leaders are calling “retaliation” for their opposition to Trump administration layoffs.

In a statement released Wednesday, the VA said the termination of the collective bargaining agreements “will make it easier for VA leaders to promote high-performing employees, hold poor performers accountable, and improve benefits and services to America’s Veterans.”

The VA is the largest federal-government employer in Pennsylvania, with more than 19,000 employees as of September. The majority work for the Veterans Health Administration, which operates health centers and clinics across the state.

Five unions will be impacted, including the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which represents around 320,000 VA workers. That includes roughly 2,000 in the Philadelphia area, according to AFGE District 3 national vice president Philip Glover.

Glover, who represents thousands of workers in Pennsylvania and Delaware, said the move is “all about retaliation.” AFGE’s national leadership has criticized the Trump administration’s efforts to shrink the federal workforce and has filed several lawsuits challenging executive orders.

“It’s very selective, it’s all based on whether a union has questioned [the Trump administration] or taken them to task over things that they’ve done,” he said. “At the same time, they’ve allowed other unions who maybe aren’t seen as as active as we are to still represent members in the same hospital.”

Karen Ford-Woods, president of AFGE Local 1793, also argued that the choice to target AFGE was a form of retaliation.

“The larger unions have been fighting him the hardest, that’s who he came after,” she said. “We’ve been proactive working against him ever since his first term.”

The VA announcement follows an executive order signed by President Donald Trump in March that instructed some federal agencies to end collective bargaining agreements on the grounds of protecting national security.

Last week, a federal appeals court lifted a lower court’s temporary injunction blocking the order’s implementation. The ruling authorized the Trump administration to move forward, although it directed agencies to refrain from ending any union contracts until litigation concluded.

Earlier this year, AFGE opposed the VA’s plan to cut more than 80,000 workers. The agency later announced that it had canceled the mass layoffs after the federal hiring freeze, deferred resignations, retirements, and “normal attrition” put it on pace to reduce staff by nearly 30,000 by the end of the fiscal year.

Glover said that, so far, the union has received no “unified message” from the VA about what the termination of the contract will mean.

“Different hospitals are telling us different things,” he said.

He worries that it will impact workplace investigations, schedules, and the resolution of pay and benefit issues.

Ford-Woods said employees are “confused and fearful of what is going to happen in the future.”

“We’re trying to figure out what some of our next moves will be,” she said. “We’re seeing people panic because they know that without the union, things aren’t going to be done fair and equitably.”

In a statement shared Wednesday, AFGE National President Everett Kelley said the group is “is assessing our options to challenge [VA Secretary Doug Collins’] decision and restore our members’ union rights.”

“Secretary Collins’ decision to rip up the negotiated union contract for [the] majority of its workforce is another clear example of retaliation against AFGE members for speaking out against the illegal, anti-worker, and anti-veteran policies of this administration,” Kelley said.

VA police officers, firefighters, and security guards are exempt from the executive order and will remain covered by their contracts.