The 11th episode of AFGE’s new series, The Activist, highlighting our union members who have stepped up to help make a difference in the lives of their colleagues and our government.
LaVawn is a veterans service representative at VBA Philadelphia Regional Office and Insurance Center. She has been a member of AFGE Local 940 since 2006. Her job is to help veterans file claims for service-connected disabilities.
She joined AFGE after discovering that the work they were doing wasn’t recorded correctly for the purposes of performance. She noticed that something needed to change, and when she talked to management, she was stonewalled.
“So the employee that I sat next to was a union rep, and he said you would be perfect for the union. You asked the right questions. They would never answer them, but you asked the right questions,” she recalled. “I became a union member and shortly afterward a steward.”
Besides getting to make a difference, being a union member provides her with a lot of benefits, including additional training for upward mobility, education benefits, and assistance with personal goals.
Listen to LaVawn talk about what it’s like working for the VBA:
Since taking office in January 2025, President Trump has issued a series of unlawful executive orders, and taken several unlawful actions, seeking to shut down congressionally mandated agencies, fire and displace federal workers, outlaw their unions, and gut merit systems protections.
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A federal judge has ordered the Department of Veterans Affairs to reinstate the union contract covering 320,000 VA employees represented by AFGE in a major victory over the implementation of President Trump’s union-busting executive orders.
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As the Department of Homeland Security shutdown reaches the one-month mark with no end in sight, AFGE leaders are calling on Congress to ensure all DHS workers are paid.
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