Miner safety outlook worsens amid reports of further NIOSH staff downsizing

The Department of Health and Human Services issued notices Friday of reductions in force, or RIFs, to roughly 250 new employees that they were being impacted by a RIF initiative announced on March 27, a spokesperson indicated.

But an HHS spokesperson denied that further National Occupational Safety and Health employees were among those employees, referring to a HHS post Saturday on X that contested a CBS News report that nearly all remaining NIOSH staff were laid off Friday.

Friday’s notices came just over a month after another announcement of reductions in force in late March that had already effectively halted a program studying respiratory disease in miners.

Scott Laney, a Preston County resident who has been a research epidemiologist for over 15 years with the NIOSH’s Coal Workers’ Health Surveillance Program, told the Gazette-Mail on Sunday that notices were sent to new workers in that program, mainly “programmatic� staff that focused in part on X-ray processing and data entry, after a previous round of RIFs issued for “science� staff. The program was established by federal law in 1969 and is widely credited for saving and extending miners’ lives through the black lung screenings it has provided to miners at no cost to them.

The NIOSH’s Morgantown facility has been among the agency sites gutted by the cuts, which are part of a downsizing HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a March statement would “reduc[e] bureaucratic sprawl� and streamline functions throughout HHS.

In a statement Saturday, United Mine Workers of America International president Cecil Roberts called the Friday evening cuts “cowardly, heartless, and utterly unacceptable.�

He continued: “Let me be clear: this is not just an attack on jobs. This is an attack on the very foundation of worker safety in the United States of America,� Roberts said, vowing the union would “fight tooth and nail� to ensure that programs like the Coal Workers’ Health Surveillance Program are restored.

Laney said notices sent Friday put NIOSH employees on immediate administrative leave with a termination date of July 2.

Laney said HHS’ denial of CBS News’ report was “straight up wrong.�

The NIOSH’s Coal Workers’ Health Surveillance Program webpage notes the program isn’t providing any new medical screenings to coal miners or accepting any new requests for review of medical information to determine coal miners’ rights for transfer to low-dust jobs due to a reduction in force across the NIOSH.

On Monday, an HHS spokesperson claimed its Friday move would have no negative impact on HHS functions or programs.

‘Normal operations are not ongoing’

Laney said he is among a limited number of NIOSH employees called back to work from forced administrative leave on a temporary basis, adding his return to work was slated for Monday ahead of a June 2 termination date.

Cathy Tinney-Zara, president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 3430 in Morgantown, estimated last week about 40 to 45 workers had returned to work from administrative leave, with 185 bargaining unit employees at NIOSH in Morgantown targeted for reductions in force. Tinney-Zara didn’t respond to a request for comment for this story.

“We are shut down,� Laney said. “Normal operations are not ongoing, and we’ve received no indication that anyone on the team will be anything but fired based off of these reduction in force notices that we’ve all received.�

Laney was not aware of a succession or handoff plan for program duties and said he had no clear instructions on what he was to be doing upon his planned temporary return to work.

‘Miners will needlessly die’

A hearing has been scheduled for Wednesday morning in ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä in a federal class-action lawsuit seeking to force HHS to resume conducting health surveillance through the Coal Workers’ Health Surveillance Program and restore the NIOSH Respiratory Health Division in Morgantown.

The plaintiff in the lawsuit against HHS and Kennedy is Harry Wiley, a miner in Kanawha County, who alleged in his complaint filed April 21 he had not received a response to his November 2024 submission to the Coal Workers’ Health Surveillance Program of a radiographic image of his chest sent as a step toward a Part 90 transfer.

Named after a section of the Title 30 Code of Federal Regulations, the Part 90 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.

“Miners will needlessly die if they close this office,� Beckley-based lawyer Sam Petsonk — who specializes in representing coal miners and co-filed the lawsuit on Wiley’s behalf — told the Gazette-Mail last month.

Muted W.Va. congressional response

The NIOSH’s latest wave of turmoil follows Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., saying last week she was “encouraged� by the return of some agency staff to work that week, though she acknowledged that was temporary. Capito chairs the Senate Labor, Health and Human Services, and Related Agencies Subcommittee.

A spokesperson for Capito didn’t provide comment when asked Monday. A spokesperson for Sen. Jim Justice, R-W.Va., a coal magnate, didn’t provide comment. Justice said last month he favored cuts to waste across federal government and that he was “sure Secretary Kennedy understands how important coal miner health programs run by the department are to West Virginia.�

A spokesperson for Rep. Riley Moore, R-W.Va., who represents Morgantown, didn’t respond to a request for comment Monday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the agency that houses the NIOSH within HHS, didn’t respond to a request for comment.

‘Who is going to monitor dust levels?’

The NIOSH upheaval comes amid a sharp increase in black lung disease among increasingly younger miners, driven by them cutting through more rock to get to thinning coal seams.

The result has been more toxic silica dust.

“Who is going to monitor dust levels in our mines?� Roberts said. “Who will ensure the next generation of miners doesn’t end up with the same black lungs as their fathers and grandfathers?�

NIOSH researchers found in a study of lung exams collected from 1970 to 2017 published in 2018 that 20.6% of miners with careers of 25 years or more in West Virginia, Kentucky and Virginia had black lung — a pronounced increase following a national low point in the late 1990s.

The U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration cited NIOSH cuts and concern they could impact supply of certified respirators and personal dust monitors upon it announcing it was pausing a rule finalized last year to lower the permissible limit for silica exposure.

A federal court on Wednesday denied UMWA and American Thoracic Society motions to intervene in a case focused on the silica rule as that union and group of respiratory health professionals look to reenact the rule. No explanation for the denial was included in the one-sentence order signed by U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit Clerk Susan Bindler.