As VA employees return to a changed workplace in Philadelphia, some are looking for the exit

When employees at the Philadelphia Department of Veterans Affairs were required to return to full-time in-office work earlier this month, it happened to be Public Service Recognition Week.

At a regional office in Germantown, managers hosted trivia contests and offered free refreshments to celebrate, but returning workers’ feelings were complex, one employee said.

“There’s people that are happy to be back, and there’s people that are really upset about being back, and then there’s a bunch of us in the middle,” said the Veterans Benefits Administration employee, who has worked at the agency for more than 20 years and spoke anonymously for fear of workplace retaliation.

“[We’re] happy to see people that we haven’t seen in a long time, but also wondering, like, why are we here?” the VBA worker said.

President Donald Trump signed a directive in January terminating remote work for federal workers. VA Secretary Douglas A. Collins directed employees within 50 miles of an office to return May 5. Those who live farther away have until late July to come back full time.

More than 20% of the department’s employees had telework or remote work arrangements, according to the VA’s “return to in-person work policy” announcement in February.

VA press secretary Peter Kasperowicz told The Inquirer that more than 60,000 VA employees are back to the office so far, “where we can work better as a team to serve veterans.”

Philadelphia employees, who handle veterans’ benefits and medical needs, came back to a changing work environment.

Mass layoffs loom and they’ve received offers to resign, while also facing mandatory overtime requirements.

Meanwhile, the union they turn to for help with workplace issues is facing challenges, too. The VA stopped withholding union dues from most employees’ paychecks in late April, and many have yet to set up their payments to the union through a separate system, local union leaders said, so technically they are no longer members.

A union representative, who asked to speak anonymously out of fear of workplace retaliation, said they’re worried about the number of veterans the benefits administration will be able to serve due to “morale being horrible, work-life balance being destroyed, the constant threat of termination,” even as employees continue to work hard.

Returning to the office has been “chaotic, to say the least,” said Yul Owens Jr., executive vice president of AFGE Local 1793, who represents Philadelphia VA workers, including those at the Corporal Michael J. Crescenz VA Medical Center in West Philadelphia.

Mass layoffs at the VA and other federal agencies are currently on hold after a California judge extended an order last week blocking the firing. If that is removed, more than 80,000 VA workers are expected to be cut nationwide. Some are already making their way toward the exit in Philadelphia, applying for retirement or deferred resignation. The VA is already understaffed in some areas, said Owens.

Philadelphia VBA employee LaVawn Green said she was in “a complete deep state of depression” and cried every day in the weeks following Trump’s inauguration. Green is chief steward of AFGE Local 940 and an authorization quality review specialist.

Now, she says, the Trump administration seems to have slowed its culling of federal workers. Trump’s billionaire adviser Elon Musk, whose Department of Government Efficiency inspired the layoffs, announced Wednesday that his time with DOGE is coming to an end. Still, Green and her colleagues are bracing for more.

“Everybody’s holding their breath, waiting for the next shoe to drop,” Green said.

Kasperowicz, the VA press secretary, said in a statement to The Inquirer that “the Trump administration inherited a VA that is in dire need of reform,” blaming former President Joe Biden’s administration management. He said the VA was “preoccupied” with DEI and “liberal telework policies for employees” and “distracted by out-of-touch, woke causes, such as gender dysphoria treatments and pronouns in email displays and signatures.”

The Trump administration has been more broadly targeting DEI programs in both the government and the private sector, as well as in schools. The president also signed an order saying there are only two sexes, male and female.

At the VA, Kasperowicz said, the Trump administration has improved processing rates for disability claims and decreased the case backlog. He said the administration is “fixing these and other serious VA problems” and that “government union bosses, the legacy media and some in Congress don’t want us to reform anything.”

At the VBA, employees have been told they must work mandatory overtime to address a “backlog” of cases — 10 hours between May 19 and May 31 and 25 hours in June. It’s the first time since pre-pandemic that they’ve had to do mandatory overtime, the 20-year VBA employee said. The details remain “up in the air, and that’s a little scary,” the employee said.

Kasperowicz confirmed that claims processors have been asked to take on 25 hours of overtime per month. “This is the right decision for Veterans, who are waiting too long to get the benefits they’ve earned,” he said.

Transitioning back to the office has been a “mess” for some local VA employees, said Karen Ford-Woods, president of AFGE Local 1793, which represents employees at the VA Medical Center in West Philly and other area facilities. They include nurses, pharmacists, and social workers.

“Some people just needed to stay at home,” Ford-Woods said. “They’re more productive [at home]. It’s less hassle.”

Some returning to the hospital in West Philly for in-office work have struggled to find parking there, now that more people are driving in, union leaders said. “And now we have the SEPTA [cuts] looming in the background, that could really impact federal employees who have been told to return to work,” said Ford-Woods.

Kasperowicz said that the agency “is making accommodations as needed so employees have enough space to work and will always ensure that Veterans’ access to benefits and services remains uninterrupted as employees return to in-person work.”

Some workers have shared concerns about the confidentiality of their work, said Ford-Woods and Owens. “It was just more privacy” working from home, Ford-Woods said, though she has not heard complaints of any actual breach. The union is working with management to address these concerns, Ford-Woods said.

In-person connections between pharmacists and veterans can be tricky with the amount of space available at the West Philly medical center, said Owens. “You kind of hear the background noise of that conversation while you’re servicing the veteran you have in front of you,” he said.

Kasperowicz noted that workers returning to the office without appropriate space “itself is a violation of VA’s return-to-in-office-work policy” and that the notion that workers returning to the office represents a privacy risk is “specious and dishonest.”

Workers are stressed and anxious, said Owens, and some are coping by taking time off. Others are making plans to leave their jobs altogether.

The VA was already understaffed in Philadelphia before Trump started his second term, Owens said, and particularly in housekeeping, nursing, food service, and pharmacy. Although, he said, since the COVID-19 pandemic, the VA has hired a lot of management positions.

Ford-Woods said more than 40 employees at the medical center have applied to a recent deferred resignation program, which was first offered earlier in the year and gave workers the option to resign while continuing to receive payment for some months. Workers that have applied to this iteration of the program are sill working as of late May, she said.

If they all end up leaving, that could “greatly impact” services, said Owens. “We’re already behind in a lot of services and maintaining as best as we can with the staffing that we have.”

Retirements, which typically happen at the end of the year because of how leave is accrued, have been taking place throughout the year, said Ford-Woods.

“The federal government was the greatest employer ever, but right now, we’re not feeling it,” Ford-Woods said.

Kasperowicz did not confirm the number of VA employees taking retirement or deferred resignation, saying that information was “hearsay” from a union representative. He said, “only non-mission critical VA employees or those whose departure will not negatively impact VA health care or benefits will be approved for the DRP.”

The agency is also conducting a review with the aim of “eliminating duplicative, unnecessary layers of bureaucracy that do nothing to serve our Veterans and actually hinder our mission,” he said. “As part of this review, mission-essential jobs like doctors, nurses and claims processors will be maintained, while positions like administrators, advisers, and middle managers will be reduced.”

John Pilat, who served in the Navy between 1977 and 1981, would spend long stretches of time crouched in aircraft carrier engine rooms and kneeling or laying on his back to work on equipment.

The work took its toll, and he had knee replacement surgery at the VA Medical Center in West Philly in December. He’s applied for disability benefits and healthcare through the department as well.

“The people there are very cooperative and very helpful,” Pilat, 66, of King of Prussia, said of VA employees. “Generally speaking, the people are not what I would consider the problem with the VA or with the system.”

Pilat said the system has always been cumbersome, and he’s noticed an added element of uncertainty in recent months.

Union representatives at the medical center and VBA say that the quality of their work — in the face of recent challenges — won’t waver.

“Our members and employees there, we will jump in and try to help to take care of a veteran in a heartbeat,” Ford-Woods said. “We know veterans. We specialize in veterans. Nobody does it better than the VA and federal employees, because federal employees have always made America work.”