Nurses, veterans, and community members waved signs outside the Atlanta Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Decatur on Tuesday protesting pending layoffs and union busting efforts at the VA that they say will detrimentally impact care that local Black veterans need.
In 2023, around 34% of all veterans in Georgia were Black, according to data from the VA’s National Center for Veterans Analysis and Statistics.
“In Atlanta, we have plenty of Black veterans — they sacrificed their life, they went on the line, they worked hard, and we made a promise to them, and breaking that promise is not what America should stand for,” Florence Uzuegbunam, a nurse practitioner and associate director of National Nurses United, the nurse’s union representing the Atlanta VA, told Capital B Atlanta…