Dorrisa Ellis has worked as a personal support assistant at the Veterans Benefits Administration St. Louis regional office in Overland since October, but she and at least 19 of her colleagues recently received an email from the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs notifying them of their immediate termination.
Ellis, 33, is a union member of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 2192. In her job, she helps veterans access documents needed for various benefits.
She was nearing the end of her shift on Feb. 24 and working on a document for a client when she received the termination email. She and her colleagues who were targeted were in their probationary period, meaning they were within a one- or two-year suitability review period required for civil service employees when hired.
“They told me that it was only administrative leave, but now they're saying that it's termination,” Ellis said. “I was also told that I was supposed to still get paid on administrative leave, but now we're saying that we’re not getting paid.
“I'm having a hard time getting a job because I came to work for the government,” Ellis said Saturday. “I left the job that I was at, so now I'm just kind of stuck with two kids.”
The AFGE is the largest federal labor union in the U.S., and dozens of members and allies rallied Saturday afternoon outside the Post Office in Florissant on North Highway 67.
Cars honked in solidarity as they passed while the crowd chanted, “When union members are under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back!” and “Hey, hey, ho, ho — Elon Musk has got to go!”
Organizers called on President Donald Trump to withdraw his executive orders that have disrupted workers nationwide since January. On Feb. 11, Trump announced the creation of the Department of Government Efficiency. DOGE is ultimately tasked with reducing the size and scope of the federal government. However, it’s unclear how much of its work is legal, as federal judges and independent boards have overturned many of DOGE’s actions, and many other lawsuits are still pending.
Pamela Tillman, an AFGE union member of Local 2192 who works at the VA facility in Overland, was also fired in late February.
“I'm thinking about the single moms,” Tillman said. “I'm thinking about people who weren't ready. We weren't expecting that. I mean, how can you just tell somebody you can't have no job today (or) your job is gone by email?”
AFGE Local 2192 President Jovianna Snead said all the letters received by terminated probationary employees were the same, stating that they were being let go due to a failure of performance.
But none of them were failing, Snead said. Under their contract, probationary employees must have a failure in production for termination to proceed.
“To us, it’s an illegal riff (and) reduction in force,” Snead said. “What was the reason that you're terminating them?”
According to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, or OPM, VA job appointments aren’t final until the probationary period ends. In Tillman’s termination letter, the OPM described such periods as “part of the hiring process” for employees.
“Until the probationary period has been completed, a probationer has ‘the burden to demonstrate why it is in the public interest for the Government to finalize an appointment to the civil service for this particular individual,” the termination letter reads. “Unfortunately, the Agency finds that your performance has not met the burden to demonstrate that your further employment at the Agency would be in the public interest.”
Fighting back
Diana Hicks, national vice president of AFGE District 9, which represents 65,000 federal employees across Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Arkansas, said she estimates over 1,000 employees and counting have been terminated across her district.
She said the government mistakenly believes it can fire probationary employees at will.
“They believe that probationaries just don't have any rights at all,” Hicks said. “Their rights are minimal, but they still do have rights. You can't just arbitrarily fire people because they're in a category. So to them, it's easier to fire the probationaries versus a tenured employee.”
Tiffany McPherson, 43, is the second vice president of AFGE Local 96, representing VA doctors, nurses, physicians and others in the St. Louis area. She’s also the AFGE District 9 National Women's Advisory Coordinator.
She said two of the local’s members were terminated a couple of weeks ago. McPherson noted that one was fired after transferring from the Department of Defense to the VA. Since she transferred, her probationary period started over.
“It was 14 years of service (that) just went down the drain,” McPherson said. “The other employee would have had her one year this month in March, but they fired her a couple of days before her probationary period was up.”
McPherson said that the employee who had 14 years of service as a federal employee was reinstated within a week of being terminated. However, the union heard nothing from the VA about why she was reinstated. McPherson said they’re working hard to file grievances as often as necessary at local and national levels.
“(Trump) can do anything he wants, but we just have to file those grievances,” McPherson said. “We have to do it, and then eventually, once it's heard by arbitrators or judges, that stuff gets turned over and those employees (will) be made whole.”
Most federal union members make around $50,000 a year, Hicks highlighted, noting that many live paycheck to paycheck.
But this isn’t the first time the Trump administration has targeted VA employees. During Trump’s first term, thousands of VA employees were fired under his 2017 Veterans Affairs Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act, which promoted VA employee suspension based on misconduct or subpar performance.
Through litigation, the AFGE union got most of those employees their jobs back, while some refused to return and accepted buyouts. The accountability act was stripped of its effectiveness through the courts, but some Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives are pushing to have Congress pass a new version this year.
“The fight’s bigger now, and they're more strategized than they were before,” Hicks said. “We're in the fight of our lives, and we have lives to save.”
