The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health’s Mobile Occupational Safety and Health Unit, where workers conduct black lung screenings on coal miners, is parked at Pipestem Resort State Park, which spans Mercer and Summers counties, in June 2018.
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health’s Mobile Occupational Safety and Health Unit, where workers conduct black lung screenings on coal miners, is parked at Pipestem Resort State Park, which spans Mercer and Summers counties, in June 2018.
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health has operated in West Virginia for decades to make work safer.
Now it’s the agency’s work that is in danger.
The danger doesn’t end there, work safety advocates say.
“We need to do everything we possibly can to get the word out that people’s lives are at risk,†said Carey Clarkson, who represents Department of Labor employees for the National Council of Field Labor Locals union.
The NIOSH, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention within the Department of Health and Human Services, is a research agency that studies worker health and has contributed decades of critical findings to support safer workplaces, including miners in West Virginia and throughout central Appalachia.
“It’s impossible to care about workers’ safety and health and not care about NIOSH,†Chris Williamson, who led the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration under former President Joe Biden, told the Gazette-Mail Tuesday.
The NIOSH workforce in Morgantown and other locations is expected to be slashed dramatically amid a Trump administration downsizing the HHS said last week would result in 10,000 fewer full-time department employees.
HHS told the AFGE Local 1916 in a letter the agency would implement a “Reduction in Force,†with a probable effective date of June 30. The letter, first reported by CBS News, cites a February that called for reducing the size of the federal workforce to “eliminat[e] waste, bloat, and insularity.â€
Around 873 NIOSH staff, or at least two-thirds of the institute’s workforce, were expected to be cut, CBS News reported Monday night.
CDC spokeswoman Belsie González referred comment to HHS. In a statement Tuesday, HHS Deputy Press Secretary Emily Hilliard declined to address the CBS News report or the future of NIOSH’s Morgantown facility. Hilliard said NIOSH, along with unspecified “critical programs,†would join the Administration for a Healthy America, alongside other agencies “to improve coordination of health resources for low-income Americans.â€
HHS said in a March 27 statement the NIOSH would be combined with the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health, Health Resources and Services Administration, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, and Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.
“Over time, bureaucracies like HHS become wasteful and inefficient even when most of their staff are dedicated and competent civil servants,†HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in the statement. “This overhaul will be a win-win for taxpayers and for those that HHS serves. That’s the entire American public, because our goal is to Make America Healthy Again.â€
But advocates say NIOSH research on respirators, ventilation controls and other worker protections has been lifesaving, not wasteful.
“If the goal is to make America healthy, this misguided approach will have the opposite effect,†Williamson said. “It will lead to more miners and workers getting sick from their jobs.â€
Morgantown, other mining-focused offices targeted
Clarkson told the Gazette-Mail on Tuesday that he’d heard from NIOSH employees who said they received emails informing them that day was their final day of work, impacting NIOSH offices in Morgantown, Pittsburgh and Spokane, Washington.
The HHS letter to AFGE lists Pittsburgh and Spokane mining research divisions as branches to be affected.
Micah Neimeier-Walsh, vice president of AFGE Local 3840 representing NIOSH employees in Cincinnati, told the Gazette-Mail Tuesday night the numbers reported by CBS News appeared correct and that the union expects nearly all programs to be affected. Those programs include mining health and safety, respirator testing and certification, and firefighter health, Neimeier-Walsh said.
Neimeier-Walsh reported the union had just learned an online site for , a registry to study cancer among firefighters, would be shut down soon because there were no information technology staff left to manage the system.
through which firefighters have provided their information to sign up for the registry was unavailable Wednesday.
Brendan Demich, chief steward of AFGE Local 1916, which represents NIOSH employees in Pittsburgh and Spokane, said in a March 27 statement moving the NIOSH outside the CDC would disrupt research on ventilation controls and respirators, leaving workers more prone to “preventable harm.â€
NIOSH operations have been located since 1971 in Morgantown, which has housed the agency’s:
Division of Safety Research Health, the NIOSH focal point for traumatic injury research
Health Effects Laboratory Division, which performs laboratory research in immunology, allergy and inflammation
Respiratory Health Division, which has studied coal mine dust, silica, flavorings and isocyanates used in making foams, fibers and paints
The Pittsburgh and Spokane mining research divisions have conducted field research at mine sites throughout the U.S., studied machine safety issues, tested mine roof supports and examined breathable dust to assess dust hazards and controls.
NIOSH researchers found in a landmark study published in 2018 of lung exams collected from 1970 to 2017 that 20.6% of miners with careers of 25 years or more in West Virginia, Kentucky and Virginia had black lung — a pronounced increase after a national low point in the late 1990s.
It was the NIOSH in 1974 that recommended a limit of 50 micrograms per cubic meter of air to be the allowed exposure limit for toxic silica dust — one the MSHA finally set as its limit in a rule finalized under Williamson last year.
“Miners in West Virginia and across the U.S. fought too hard and died for these rights and statutory protections for Congress to sit on the sidelines and let billionaires rip them away,†Williamson said.
Congressional delegation largely quiet
U.S. Sen. Jim Justice, R-W.Va., a coal magnate whose mines have been targeted by the MSHA for chronic miner safety and health violations, didn’t come out for or against the moves to slash the NIOSH in a statement provided by a spokesperson Tuesday.
“I’ve seen the news regarding layoffs in Morgantown, and with it have seen the plan put together by Secretary Kennedy to restructure to entire Health Department,†Justice said. “I am in favor of cuts to waste across the federal government, and I’m sure Secretary Kennedy understands how important coal miner health programs run by the department are to West Virginia.â€
Spokespeople for Reps. Riley Moore and Carol Miller, both R-W.Va., did not respond to requests for comment.
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., chairman of the Senate Labor, Health and Human Services, and Related Agencies Subcommittee, expressed concern about the NIOSH cuts in response to a Gazette-Mail request for comment Wednesday.
“While I believe in the broad vision set forth by the Trump administration to right size our government, I’m concerned that the cuts at CDC/NIOSH could impact vital health programs that are important to many West Virginians, especially our coal miners,†Capito said.
Capito said she and Kennedy discussed the importance of coal worker health in West Virginia last week and during meetings prior to his confirmation as secretary, which she and Justice supported.
“Any cuts that impact their health monitoring need to be restored immediately,†Capito said, adding that she was working with HHS to understand the depth of the cuts to programs and the workforce in Morgantown.
UMWA asks: ‘A War on Coal Miners?’
Capito’s comments followed a United Mine Workers of America statement Tuesday titled “Is There Now a War on Coal Miners?â€
UMWA International President Cecil Roberts cited the Trump administration indicating it had terminated the leases of 33 MSHA offices, including two in West Virginia, and a U.S. Trade Representative proposal to impose up to $1.5 million in fees on Chinese-built ships that enter U.S. ports to take on materials, including coal, produced in the U.S. and exported globally. Roberts contended those moves respectively jeopardize miner safety and set up miners to be laid off.
“I do not think that these actions are being done in a coordinated way to hurt the American coal industry and those who work in it. But that is the effect,†Roberts said. “Miners have and can continue to produce the materials to power American homes, produce American steel and so many other products our society uses every day. They deserve answers from the administration as to why it appears there is now a target on their backs.â€
AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler blasted the NIOSH cuts in a statement Tuesday evening.
“This action is a gift to corporations that want to slash worker protections to create more profits,†Shuler said. “It’s an insult to the workers who put their lives on the line at work every day and their families who wait for them to come home.â€
In 2023, there were 5,286 fatal work injuries recorded in the U.S. and 58 in West Virginia, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Private industry employers reported 2.6 million nonfatal workplace injuries and illnesses in 2023, per Bureau data.
“[Work deaths and injuries] will only increase now that the government is firing the federal workers who make workplaces safer,†Shuler said.
‘Stop this horrible mistake’
The NIOSH manages a program that has been especially impactful in West Virginia — one designed to protect mine workers from dusty environments.
The program allows miners to exercise their rights under a section of the Title 30 Code of Federal Regulations, known as Part 90. The program gives miners with occupational lung disease the right to be transferred to a low-dust environment without having their pay reduced and with protection against termination or other discrimination.
There were 51 active Part 90 miners in West Virginia as of May 2024, according to a presentation delivered by a MSHA representative at the National Coalition of Black Lung & Respiratory Disease Clinics Conference at Pipestem Resort State Park in Summers County last year.
West Virginia’s 51 miners, while still a tiny fraction of the state’s mine workforce, comprised 75% of all Part 90 miners recorded nationwide.
The NIOSH reviews medical testing information and determines eligibility for Part 90 protection, and partnered with the MSHA to produce a to give mine operators and others with tools to implement workplace interventions to prevent prescription and illegal opioid use as well as opioid use disorder among mine workers.
