Ronnie Orlowski has been working at the Canandaigua VA Medical Center for 14 years. He said caring for veterans is arguably the best job he’s ever had.
But he said a third of his coworkers, who are veterans, are currently stressed over possible layoff threats.
“They have already given and served their country,” Orlowski said. “Here they are now doing a very difficult job, not knowing if they're going to have a job tomorrow.”
The Department of Government Efficiency and the Trump administration reportedly plan to cut more than 80,000 employees from the Department of Veterans Affairs in an “aggressive,” nationwide reorganization. Thousands of VA workers were already fired, officials said, including some living in the Rochester-Finger Lakes region.
“The workers here are not government waste. They're not government inefficiency. They're the government's best,” said U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-NY, while standing among VA workers on Wednesday outside the Canandaigua VA Medical Center.
Schumer called on DOGE and the Trump administration to restore the VA workforce and to stop any plans to eliminate more jobs.
“It just boils my blood you treat people who got injured defending our freedom, so poorly, so cruelly, so nastily,” Schumer said.
VA expanded its workforce during the Biden administration, and Trump reportedly wants to return to 2019 staffing levels without cuts to veterans' health care and benefits. But Schumer argued the cuts are a direct assault on the veterans in Upstate New York.
“We hate DOGE,” Schumer said. “DOGE is shoot first, ask questions later, and our veterans are the ones who get caught in the crossfire.”
Schumer urged veterans and their supporters to call their local political leaders. He said it works when the public's voice is heard.
“These veterans were promised care,” Orlowski said. “They should have world-class care. The VA provides world class care.”
The Canandaigua workers also will be holding a protest on Saturday.
