Unions: Trump Attack on Labor Safety Agency 'Will Take Working Conditions Back Centuries'
The coalition urged Congress to "ask President Trump to reinstate all NIOSH divisions and their staff," and warned "that "the cost of inaction will be severe and excruciating for individuals and society."
The AFL-CIO and 27 labor unions on Thursday marked May Day with a letter calling on members of Congress to push U.S. President Donald Trump to reverse his gutting of a key federal agency.
The Trump administration last month made major cuts to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), a "small but mighty agency" that "aims to ensure safety in a wide variety of occupations, such as mining, construction, agriculture, firefighting, and among healthcare, service, and office workers," according to the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
While May 1 is International Workers' Day, April 28 is Workers' Memorial Day, "a poignant reminder of the real human cost of unsafe workplaces," notes the letter to U.S. lawmakers. "We remember all we have lost on the job and recommit ourselves to fulfill the promise of a safe job, so that every loved one returns home unharmed at the end of each shift."
"The most recent data show that 385 people still die each day in the U.S. because of their jobs—more than 5,000 from job injuries and an estimated 135,000 from job illnesses, annually," the coalition continued. "These staggering numbers are completely unacceptable and entirely preventable; these deaths are a systemic failure. Behind every life lost each day is a family across the United States mourning a parent, sibling, child, neighbor, or friend."
The letter highlights that Congress created NIOSH alongside the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Mine Safety and Health Administration, and how it "saves lives daily, in ways that OSHA and MSHA cannot."
NIOSH has the expertise to "provide initial and ongoing certification of respirators and other lifesaving equipment," and to "test other equipment like cleaning booths in mining, fluid resistance of gowns in healthcare, hydraulic winches in fishing, and robotic equipment in manufacturing, as well as explosive environments, dangerous mining conditions, and rescue technologies, and many others."
The agency also helps "employers and worker representatives identify unknown exposures in workplaces such as clusters of cancers, digestive issues, respiratory disease, and other phenomena that occur closely in one worksite," and facilitates "medical care and compensation for workers under the World Trade Center Health Program (WTCHP) for 9/11 responders and survivors and the Energy Workers Program for (Cold War civilian veterans) exposed to deadly hazards."
Yet, Trump's so-called Department of Government Efficiency "functionally dismantled NIOSH—one of the most critical and impactful agencies to every worker in America, their families, and to industries alike," the letter states. "More than 85% of NIOSH staff were placed on administrative leave, to be terminated in June."
The labor coalition argued that "this decision must be immediately reversed as it will take working conditions back centuries, when chronic occupational diseases and fatalities skyrocketed with no government agency to help identify causes and research interventions."
"On this week of Workers' Memorial Day, we urge you to take immediate action by sending letters and making phone calls to ask President Trump to reinstate all NIOSH divisions and their staff," the coalition urged lawmakers. "The cost of inaction will be severe and excruciating for individuals and society. Safe jobs are a fundamental right for every worker in America, and NIOSH is necessary to make this right a reality."
Demonstrating how pressure from Congress may be effective on this front, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) told The Washington Post that she implored Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to reverse job cuts that led to NIOSH suspending the Coal Workers' Health Surveillance Program—and on Tuesday, the newspaper reported, the admistration "temporarily reinstated dozens of fired federal workers who help screen coal miners for black lung."
"Capito said between 30 and 40 fired NIOSH employees would be temporarily brought back to the agency. She added that she had heard from coal miners who were anxiously awaiting word from NIOSH about whether they could receive federal black lung benefits," according to the Post, which noted the administration's plans to ultimately "form a new entity called the Administration for a Healthy America."
Unions that signed on to the new letter include the American Postal Workers Union (APWU), Communication Workers of America (CWA), National Nurses United (NNU), Service Employees International Union (SEIU), United Auto Workers (UAW), United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), and United Steelworkers (USW).
Some signatories have challenged other Trump administration policies in federal court, such as the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), American Federation of Teachers (AFT), and American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).