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:
AFGE is urging members of Congress to reject legislation introduced last week that would undercut earned benefits for our nation’s military veterans, strip workplace rights and protections from thousands of psychologists at the Department of Veterans Affairs, and push more veterans outside the VA for their health care.
AFGE Council 220 President Jessica LaPointe traveled from Wisconsin last week and delivered a stark message on Capitol Hill about the future of the Social Security Administration.
The House Armed Services Committee approved an amendment to the fiscal 2027 National Defense Authorization Act that would restore collective bargaining rights at the Department of Defense, while also rejecting an amendment that would have lifted the longstanding moratorium on privatizing federal jobs through OMB Circular A-76.
