Five of the seven workers fired at the VA Togus Medical Center this week are veterans themselves, U.S. Sen. Angus King said in a Wednesday statement calling their terminations “reckless.”
The Maine firings were part of a national push from President Donald Trump’s administration to slash the federal workforce. All of the employees were on their probationary periods, and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs said Monday it was firing 1,400 workers in “non-mission critical” positions that would not affect veteran health care.
King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, disputed that notion in his statement, which supplied the most specific information about the firings of what the VA called a “small number” of Maine workers on Tuesday. He said the workers included police dispatchers, logistics managers and those in a customer experience office.
“At a time when Maine’s veteran population needs are on the rise, now is not the time for us to ask the hard working staff of the VA to do more with less,” King said. “The fact that the majority of the Togus firings are veterans themselves adds insult to injury as they work to deliver care to those who served.”
A VA Maine spokesperson did not immediately confirm the information released by King’s office, but he said the hospital was looking into it. The Maine AFL-CIO, a labor group, broke the news of the Maine firings in a news release on Tuesday.
The Trump administration told the Togus workers they were losing their jobs due to “poor performance,” the Maine AFL-CIO said. That language is similar to other messages that have gone to since-fired workers, including National Park Service staff at Acadia National Park.
U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican, criticized the firings in a Wednesday statement saying she was still seeking more information but that it appeared local staff were not consulted.
“Our local VA understands the staffing they require to meet the needs of Maine veterans better than Washington,” she said. “They deserve to be included in personnel decisions at their facility.”
