Months of advocacy by AFGE and other veterans allies paid off last week when lawmakers achieved enough signatures to compel a vote in the U.S. House on legislation to ensure veterans receive all of the compensation they are owed for their military service.
The Major Richard Star Act (H.R. 2102, S. 1032) would allow certain combat-injured veterans to receive both their full military retirement pay and as well as any disability benefits owed to them by the Department of Veterans Affairs, regardless of their disability rating.
The legislation has broad, bipartisan support in Congress – yet its future was put in jeopardy when congressional leaders lumped the bill with dozens of other legislative proposals that would undermine veterans’ care and reduce workplace rights and protections for thousands of veteran caregivers in the civil service.
In June, AFGE President Everett Kelley joined members of the Democratic Veterans Caucus and representatives from Veterans Service Organizations and other labor unions in calling on lawmakers to reject the omnibus bill and pass the Richard Star Act on its own. AFGE also joined a coalition of 22 labor unions representing hundreds of thousands of VA employees and millions of veterans who receive their health care and benefits from the VA in sending a letter to lawmakers outlining our strong opposition to the legislative package.
“I thank the members of Congress who answered our call and added their signatures to the discharge petition calling for House leadership to schedule a vote on this critical bill as soon as possible. Now that the discharge petition has reached the needed threshold of 218 signatures, we look forward to the bill coming to the House floor for a vote as soon as possible,” Kelley said.
The push for a vote on the Major Richard Star Act all but dooms the larger legislative package crafted by congressional leaders. That omnibus bill, misleadingly called the “Take Care of America’s Veterans Act,” would have eliminated or reduced benefits for up to 1.5 million veterans, cut $57 billion in future disability payments over the next decade, further privatized mental health services and VA clinical research, and stripped thousands of VA psychologists of their workplace rights.
“If we are to keep our promise to take care of those who have served us, we cannot turn our backs on them, and we cannot weaken the system designed to care for them,” Kelley said.
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