USDA worker Skye Carpenter sounds the alarm on the Trump administration’s reckless layoffs and what they will mean for Minnesota farmers, the nation’s agricultural industry and the integrity of its food supply.
While members of Congress went on recess the week of March 17, Minnesota’s labor movement went to work.
Union members showed up at Republican congressional offices across the state to support federal workers and services in the crosshairs of unelected billionaire and Trump megadonor Elon Musk’s “DOGE” team.
The message to lawmakers, Minnesota AFL-CIO President Bernie Burnham said, is that federal workers are real people, not lines on a balance sheet.
The statewide labor federation worked with the American Federation of Government Employees to coordinate actions at offices of all four Republican members of Minnesota’s congressional delegation during the recess week.
Republicans so far have shown little interest in oversight of Musk, and they showed little interest, too, in hearing from federal workers impacted by the chaos that DOGE has sewn across federal agencies. While some union members at the actions were able to meet with lawmakers’ staff, Burnham said, others were “shown the door.”
During the same week, AFGE members aired their concerns at a Capitol press conference in St. Paul, warning that the damage DOGE has done in the first two months of Trump’s second term could take years to fix.
Skye Carpenter, an employee in the U.S. Department of Agriculture and member of AFGE Local 3748, struggled to suppress her anger as she described the work done by employees laid off from her office, Agricultural Research Services.
Those fired include leaders, scientists and support staff who work “hand in hand with farmers,” she said, to implement scientific research into agricultural practices. She called the cuts “an attack on every farmer, every consumer and every community that depends on research we conduct.”
“The farmers who rely on our cutting-edge research to combat drought, disease and pests are left without answers,” Carpenter said. “The scientists working to protect against livestock illnesses that could devastate our agricultural economy are silenced. The taxpayers funding this research are robbed of the progress and innovation they were promised.”
Jacob Romans, a registered nurse at the VA Hospital in Minneapolis and president of AFGE Local 3669, said DOGE layoffs at Veterans Affairs have nothing to do with efficiency.
“Let me be very clear,” Romans said. “DOGE is run by very unserious people making very serious decisions.”
Earlier in the month, a leaked memo showed the Trump administration planned to slash the VA’s staffing to 2019 levels. That would mean cutting nearly 80,000 jobs, or 20% of the department’s staff. Romans estimated the local VA would lose 1,300 workers.
“We were already short staffed before 2019,” he said. “This would devastate our workforce… I have nurses right now who are working 16-hour days. We’re being mandated to because we don’t have the staff.
“It is imperative that Congress exercise their ability to halt these layoffs and prevent the dismantling of the VA care system.”
– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor
