Washington, U.S.A. — The states of Georgia, Illinois, North Carolina and Texas will receive grants totaling $3 million to develop strategies aimed at helping returning Army veterans find employment more quickly through the public workforce system, Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis announced on July 24. This funding represents an initiative of the U.S. Department of Labor and the U.S. Army under the Unemployment Compensation for Ex-service Members program.

“The Labor Department is deeply committed to providing employment services and benefits that best support the men and women who have served our country, and the grants announced today are an example of that commitment,” said Secretary Solis. “Ensuring Army veterans have expedited access to job training and job placement services is one way our nation honors their sacrifices.”

This initiative will provide each of the four states with $750,000 to develop new strategies to enhance outreach and re-employment services for Army unemployment compensation claimants. Examples of strategies include improved tracking of claimants across federal programs to better link unemployed veterans to potential job opportunities; increasing staff capacity to help claimants understand which military skills can be transferred to civilian careers; expanding service delivery through agency partnerships, such as opening employment service satellite offices in U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs locations; and expanding outreach activities to better connect these veterans to American Job Centers, job fairs and other services that can expedite their return to work.

“These grants are an important step toward ensuring that the soldiers who so valiantly and selflessly served our nation get the help they need transitioning back to civilian life,” said Secretary of the Army John McHugh. “By sharing information, improving access to re-employment services and increasing outreach opportunities, we can help Army veterans get better access to and information about job opportunities. I’m grateful to Secretary Solis and the Department of Labor for their support. This is great news for the Army and its veterans.”

The four states selected have large populations of Army veterans who are unemployment compensation claimants and have been actively collaborating with both the Labor Department and the Army to improve veterans’ access to the public workforce system. These grants will be implemented over the next two years, and the promising practices developed with these investments will be shared with other states and expanded to include other branches of the military.

Image Courtesy of   Shcherbakov Ilya / Shutterstock.com

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St. Louis, U.S.A. — The second annual Veterans Festival in Forest Park is set for Labor Day weekend September 1-3. Admission to the Festival is free from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. in the Veterans Village at Forest Park—the 1,293-acre jewel of the St. Louis metropolitan area one of St. Louis’ most treasured resources. The Veterans Festival committee announced that Anheuser-Busch is the premier sponsor of the event.

The mission of the Veterans Festival in Forest Park is to salute the sacrifices these brave men and women have made for our country and community.  The Veterans Festival aims to promote awareness of the resources and services available to Veterans and their families.

“Over 500,000 Veterans make Missouri their home.  As the young men and women deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan return home, we want them to be aware of the services and support that are available to them,” says Festival Chairman Dave Morgan.

Veterans Festival Founder Robert Hermann says, “The goal of this Veterans Festival is to bring our community together in honor of all Missouri Veterans who have served their country so bravely and selflessly in numerous wars and conflicts in the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries.”

“Veterans helping Veterans, that’s what we do,” Morgan continued.

Proceeds from the Veterans Festival in Forest Park go to officers’ service programs at the Veterans of Foreign Wars, American Legion and Disabled American Veterans.

Activities and Events

Veterans Village, near the Muny, will be the centerpiece of the three-day Festival featuring family activities, concerts, and exhibits throughout Forest Park including:

• special offers and events for Veterans and their families all weekend at the St. Louis Zoo, Art Museum, History Museum, Science Center and off-site at the Missouri Botanical Garden
• Veteran resources and services in the Veterans’ Village
• a parade led by the majestic Budweiser Clydesdales on Saturday and will remain on site for photos with guests
• hundreds of vintage automobiles on display
• golf tournament
• a tennis tournament at the Dwight Davis tennis courts
• military equipment both modern and dating back more than 100 years including Special Ops aircraft and a 30-foot Coast Guard Vessel
• bands performing, rock, country, bluegrass, jazz and other popular musical styles
• battle reenactments
• festival food and refreshment vendors
• Veterans Festival 10-mile run
• win a 2012 Harley-Davidson Softail motorcycle

The Veterans’ event expects to draw more than 1/2 million people to a weekend of sports, arts, games, history and fun throughout Forest Park — all to honor the men and women who have nobly and selflessly served our nation.

For more information on the Festival visit http://www.vfstl.com/

Image Courtesy of  Anthony Correia / Shutterstock.com

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November President Obama signed into law the “Vow to Hire Heroes Act” designed to increase employment opportunities for America’s veterans. But a key provision in the act creating an expedited process for hiring returning soldiers for federal jobs is being undermined by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) – the very agency responsible for improving veterans’ lives.

The VA hires more veterans than any other federal agency except the Department of Defense. However, according to the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the AFL-CIO union that represents over 205,000 VA employees, the agency continues to violate federal law by contracting out work that has been traditionally performed by veterans. The outsourced jobs include many entry level jobs that disabled veterans rely on to get back on their feet after returning from the battlefield.

The process began during the Bush Administration, when the number of VA hospitals and cemeteries that outsourced work historically performed by veterans skyrocketed.  Jobs that embodied the tradition of “veterans helping veterans,” such as cemetery caretakers, laundry and food service workers, housekeepers, groundskeepers, and transportation assistants, disappeared as more and more contractors were handed the work without the required studies to show whether contracting out was cost-effective to taxpayers.

Unfortunately, under the Obama Administration, the illegal outsourcing of entry-level VA jobs has become more prevalent.  Recently, the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) entered into a $54 million, three-year contract with ACS Government Systems, a major contractor in the federal sector, for claims processing work currently performed by large numbers of veterans.

ACS will develop disability and pension claims, help VBA convert to a paperless system, and conduct outreach to encourage more veterans to file claims online.  To add insult to injury, the VBA employees are being asked to volunteer to train the contractors to do their work.

The excessive use of contract health care services also presents a serious dilemma for veterans receiving VA care and the many veterans who join the VA health care workforce after saving lives on the battlefield.

“Contract physicians and nurses lack the specialized skills and best practices of clinicians who dedicate their lives to serving the veteran population as VA employees,” said AFGE National VA Council President Alma Lee. “It’s the workforce’s commitment to veterans’ care that makes the VA a world-class and very cost effective health care system.  Excessive contracting out has put many medical centers in the red, without benefitting the patient. ”

“We all know who is hurt the most by these growing outsourcing practices,” said AFGE National President John Gage, “It’s the veteran on the receiving end of the agency’s services. Contract claims processors working for profit will now handle the most personal information of our veterans.”

Moreover, said AFGE, most of the VA’s contracts violate federal sourcing law that bans federal work from being given away to contractors without a fair competition between public and private employees. The requirement for agencies to conduct a cost-benefit analysis before awarding a contract was set in a 2009 Appropriations law passed by a bipartisan Congress.

Image Courtesy of   Cheryl Casey / Shutterstock.com

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